In this brief devotional video, Rick Lee James, the music pastor at First Church of the Nazarene in Springfield, Ohio, introduces the upcoming Sunday worship service. He announces a new sermon series titled “God Establishing the Family,” and explains that the worship team will sing the song “When God Reigns,” a retelling of the Prodigal Son that shifts focus to the “prodigal God” who lavishly gives love to all. James encourages listeners—especially those without a family or church community—to consider the church as the family God establishes, and invites them to join the service. He provides practical details: the church’s address (901 East Home Road, Springfield, OH), website (homerodenaz.org), and his Twitter handle (@RickLeeJames). The tone is warm, inviting, and spiritually encouraging.
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Hi, I am Rick Lee James, the music pastor at First Church of the Nazarene in Springfield, Ohio, and this is Preparing Our Hearts for Worship for this coming week. We're going to be starting a new series on God Establishing the Family, and we're going to be singing a song for a special actually this week that we just a few moments ago as a praise team just finished practicing. It's an older song called When God Reigns And it's the story of the prodigal son, and it's a beautiful retelling of the story, but the, the focus of the story truly is not the prodigal son, but the prodigal God, as I've heard it called before. Prodigal is this word that means wasteful, someone who just kind of lavishly pours out something or wastefully gives something away or is wasteful with something in their life. And we usually refer to The Prodigal Son in that way. But we find that, uh, the prodigal God is really the focus of the story. The God who runs to us, the God who is so seemingly wasteful with his love that he's undiscerning about who he gives it to, that he gives it to everyone, especially this son who has seemed to squander it away. And even the son who stayed behind in the parable of the Prodigal Son, who is also really another sinful son who just stayed at home, who didn't go away, but still didn't want anything to do with sharing the love of God. And so this coming Sunday, we're going to be singing that song, and I just hope that you'll kind of get in your mind, your mindset, of this God who establishes family, who gives us a new family, who, for those of us who, who may not even have family at home, maybe you live alone, that that God has established his new family on earth and has given family to everyone. And I'm excited to be able to worship and lead worship with our praise team this coming Sunday morning again and to talk about the family that God establishes. And really, that family is the church. So if you haven't got a church family that you're a part of, we hope that you'll come be a part of us here at First Church of the Nazarene. We're located at 901 East Home Road in Springfield, Ohio, and our website is homerodenaz.org. I'm Rick Lee James. You can follow me on Twitter @RickLeeJames. Hope you can join us for Sunday morning this week. God bless.
