Pastor Chris shared the challenging message “When the Past Is Not Past: Living for Christ with Integrity” from Galatians 4:1-7. May we lean into our new identity in Christ.

Pray for Pastor Chris as he prepares to preach from Galatians 4:8–20.

Pray for healing for Bob and Diane in their continuing journey with cancer. 

Ask the Lord to bring new people to our Christianity Explored class. May we be a congregation that more and more desires to reach our neighbors with the gospel. 

Pray for our Men’s and Women’s Bible Studies, our Youth Ministry, our Small Groups, and our Adult Sunday School. May we more and more become people of the Word. 

Pray for the Men’s Breakfast on January 24. 

Pray for our Community Chat Potluck on February 15th. 

Pray for our Naperville Coffee & Classics group, which resumes on February 21. 

Please pray for the following events:
Coffee & Cannoli (February 1), Discover NCC Class (February 8), Membership Class #1 (February 15), Membership Class #2 (February 22). May people be drawn into our fellowship and be given the tools they need to be joyful and productive members of the NCC family. 

Pray for our scheduled Sisters Together events on February 7 and April 18. 

Pray for our NCC Forums as we set the schedule for this semester. We need wisdom. May we settle upon events that bless our community and draw people—including us—closer to Christ. 

In today’s congregational prayer we will be praying for our missionary partners Marco and Federica Saillen. The Saillens serve the missionary field in Bologna, Italy through their local church. There, Marco serves in two roles, both as a teaching pastor and as an oversight pastor of all the church’s ministries. Federica serves as co-leader of an anti-trafficking ministry named
Vite Trasformate, Transformed Lives. This ministry provides a safe and holistic recovery program for women fleeing entrapment and slavery in sex trafficking underworld.

Our congregational prayer today will be based on the inspired word from Psalm 103:1-5.

Let all that I am praise the LORD;
with my whole heart, I will praise His holy name.
2 Let all that I am praise the LORD;
may I never forget the good things He does for me.
3 He forgives all my sins
and heals all my diseases.
4 He redeems me from death
and crowns me with love and tender mercies.
5 He fills my life with good things.
My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!

Let us pray.

Dear Almighty God and Heavenly Father, We come before You today humbly and reverently, calling our own souls to worship. You are the gracious and merciful God who forgives all of our iniquities, heals all of our spiritual diseases, redeems our lives from the pit of judgment, and crowns us with steadfast love and mercy. You satisfy us, Lord, with the richest of
all good things. Our inner strength is renewed every day by Your steadfast provision.

Today, we choose to remember Your acts of grace. We remember the exodus where You revealed Your purpose and power to set us free from bondage to this world. We remember the cross, where You fully pardoned our sins. We remember the empty tomb where You defeated death on our behalf. We remember Your daily mercies, made new every morning. And we remember that all we have in this life comes from Your gracious hand.

We confess, Father, that we are so quick to forget who You are and all that You have done. We remember our troubles more easily than Your kindness, our failures more frequently than Your forgiveness, and our fears more fervently than Your faithfulness.

We pray that You would forgive our spiritual amnesia.

We confess today that we have sinned against You and against the very people You have placed in our lives. We have failed to love You and them well, both in how we have acted and in how we have failed to act.

We confess quietly to You now our own individual sin.  Lord, we ask for Your forgiveness and for Your mercy.

We pray for your missionary servants around the world who bring your Gospel of grace and the love of Your son Jesus Christ to the nations.

Today, we pray specifically for Marco and Federica Saillen. We pray that You will continue to strengthen and sustain them in all their ministry responsibilities, guiding and protecting them from weariness in all the many ways they serve others to Your honor and glory. We pray that You would bring them rest.

We pray for the Saillen children, that You would protect their vulnerable minds and tender hearts from all the negative input they receive at school. We pray for their growth in knowledge and
faith in Christ.

For the Vite Trasformate ministry we pray for the resident women in recovery there, that they would witness a balance between care and discipline, firmness and compassion, and above all a steadfast trust in You.

We pray for the members of our New Covenant Church family who are hurting physically, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually.

We pray that Your grace would restore weary hearts, give strength to the weakened, bring hope to the discouraged, and lift the spirit of those who are bowed down.

We pray for Pastor Chris as he preaches today from the Book of Galatians. May the Holy Spirit guide Chris to preach Your truth with fidelity, clarity, and understanding. We pray that You would
use his words to open our closed minds, remove the scales from our blinded eyes, and tenderize our callous hearts toward you.

We pray, Lord, that You would teach us all to live as people redeemed, not condemned; as victors empowered, not victims defeated, as children adopted and loved, not discarded and abandoned; and as servants filled with joy, not slaves bound by duty.

We pray that our worship today will rise not only from our lips, but from lives lived in gratitude, obedience, trust, and fruitfulness. May our faithfulness bless and honor You, Father, not only in this moment of worship, but by every breath You give us.

We pray all of these things in the name of Your Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Amen.