• Solid Food •

Jesus’ kind of love.

Len Netti — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 01:54:10 GMT

Free us from the exhausting need to justify ourselves.

At the heart of the Gospel is this deep, wonderful truth: a very unique kind of love exists. It’s the kind of love that would have us forgiving each other. Even when—especially when—the person we are forgiving is far from deserving it.

That kind of love—the kind of love that forgives like that—is first given to us in Jesus Christ. And then He calls us to share that same forgiving love with others. And He puts His own Spirit in us so that we can.

Receiving God’s forgiveness and extending forgiveness to others are inseparable. Not because it is some sort of transaction, like we somehow earn God’s mercy when we forgive. They are inseparable because as we participate in the grace He has already so freely given to us, we cannot help but forgive others.

So bring all your wounds, resentments, and struggles that still need to be forgiven, and the reconciling love He offers and welcomes us into—that love will transform us.

Themes

Reconciliation in Christ • Unconditional divine grace • Participation in Christ’s forgiveness • Spirit-enabled love • Freedom from resentment • Restored communion • Outward-turned hearts • Freedom from self-justification • Extending grace • Healing • Community • Christ’s continuing intercession • Surrendered claims

Worship isn’t spiritual negotiation.

Scripture reading

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2 Corinthians 5:19
Ephesians 4:31–32
Hebrews 7:25

This call to worship1 invites us into a love that doesn’t wait for us to become worthy—a love that forgives before we ever manage to tidy ourselves up. In Jesus Christ, forgiveness isn’t a possibility; it is a finished reality. The Holy Spirit does not wait for us to get our act together. He draws us, right now, into the remarkable freedom of the forgiven: freedom from the old habits of resentment, freedom from the endless treadmill of self-justification, freedom to give away the same forgiveness that has already been lavished on us in Christ.

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Paul wrote the following. 

God, through Christ, 
reconciled us to Himself 
and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 
that is, 
in Christ 
God was reconciling the world to Himself, 
not counting their trespasses against them, 
and entrusting to us 
the message of reconciliation. 


Paul also wrote:

Let all bitterness 
and wrath 
and anger 
and clamor 
and slander 
be put away from you, 
along with all malice. 
Be kind to one another, 
tenderhearted, 
forgiving one another, 
as God in Christ 
forgave you.


The writer of the book of Hebrews wrote: 

Jesus is able to save to the uttermost 
those who draw near to God through Him, 
since He always lives 
to make intercession 
for them.

Prayer

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Heavenly Father, 
we are very thankful. 
We are thankful
that Your love 
and Your forgiveness 
don’t begin 
with our repentance 
or our efforts 
to make ourselves somehow worthy. 

In Jesus Christ, 
You entered our broken humanity, 
You bore our sin, 
You accomplished our reconciliation!

So, we acknowledge 
that none of us are here 
to persuade You to be gracious. 

Our worship isn’t a spiritual negotiation.
We’re not trying to secure something favorable from You. 
You have already opened Your heart to us.

We’ve come simply to worship You 
for the grace already given to us 
in Your Son, 
Jesus Christ.

Lord Jesus, 
You know so very well 
the wounds we carry around. 
You entered our creaturely condition. 
You assumed a complete human life 
with its vulnerability, 
and its grief and suffering, 
and its exposure to hostility.

You know all the grievances we keep rehearsing in our minds. 
You know how we organize our lives around our injuries
You know how resentment turns us inward—
away from You, 
away from neighbor.
 
Free us from the prison of bitterness.  
Free us from the exhausting need to justify ourselves. 
That responsibility belongs only to You.
Teach us to surrender our demands 
for whatever it is we think we deserve 
into Your righteous and merciful hands.

In You, Jesus, our lives are held 
within the Father’s faithful love!
You have entered our estrangement.
And You have turned us back toward the communion 
that we were created for.

So, Holy Spirit, 
now turn our hearts outward. 
Enable us to participate 
in the generous, 
self-giving, 
reconciling love 
that’s been revealed in Jesus Christ.
 
Where we’ve kept accounts of other people’s failures, 
help us to extend grace. 
Where our relationships are broken, 
lead us in truth, 
and in repentance, 
and in forgiveness, 
and in the patient work of healing. 

Make this church a place 
where Your covenant love 
becomes visible.

And now, risen and ascended Lord Jesus, 
as You intercede for us before the Father, 
pull us more deeply into Your own life of forgiveness, 
so that our lives become instruments 
of Your reconciling love.

To the Father, 
through the Son, 
and in the Holy Spirit, 
be all glory, honor, and praise.

Amen.

Unlike a grudge, this is something worth passing along.

Go deeper.

This call to worship was given to the small assembly of Christians who gathered at Pathway Church in Beaverdam, Michigan, on October 25, 2026.

Known all the way down.

Len Netti — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 11:15:37 GMT

We remember Zacchaeus as the man who wanted to see Jesus. He was a chief tax collector in Jericho, rich and despised (his neighbors had their reasons), too short to see over the crowd, too notorious to be welcomed through it. So he ran ahead—undignified, desperate—and climbed a sycamore tree to catch a glimpse of Him.

But Luke turns the story upside down. It’s not Zacchaeus who sees Jesus, but Jesus who sees Zacchaeus. “When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him.”

The crowd had filed Zacchaeus under: sinner. They grumbled when Jesus went home with him. But Jesus stopped under that tree anyway, saw him, and called him by name. Before Zacchaeus made a single promise or paid back a single coin, Jesus invited Himself in: “Today I must stay at your house.” The welcome of Jesus came first. Zacchaeus’ repentance, described as giving half of everything he owned to the poor, four times over to anyone he’d cheated, grew out of that welcome.

We know a little of what it’s like to be Zacchaeus. We know what it is to be noticed (not for what we want to be noticed for) without being known. To be seen for something we’ve done, not for who we are. We spend years alongside people—in class, at work, in the same pew every Sunday—who know our names, our jobs, and our opinions, and yet never know the fear that keeps us awake night. So we become experts at masking. We’ll smile while we’re grieving. We’ll sound confident while we’re wrestling with doubt. We’ll look strong while we’re running on empty. We wear our masks for so long we forget they’re masks.

Jesus sees through every mask. He knows us more deeply than our closest friend, more deeply than we know ourselves.

How can he know us like this?

It isn’t that He has our stats, all our data, every detail of our lives on file. Jesus knows us because He entered the very life we live. The eternal Son of God became one of us. He knew hunger. He knew weariness. He knew sorrow. He knew disappointment. He knew temptation. He knew suffering. He took up our humanity just as it is: broken, estranged, bent away from God. And, without ever sinning, He lived our life back toward the Father and healed it from the inside. He went down into the darkest parts of our stories. He carried our sin to the cross. And He rose and ascended to His Father, still human, still one of us, with our humanity healed and held in His own. He knows us from the inside because He has made our life His own. All the way down.

And He hasn’t turned away. He never has. He never will.

This is why we can take off our masks before God. We don’t have to set the record straight, or make our case, or clean ourselves up first. Our relationship with the Father has already been set in Jesus Christ. He has lived the trusting, obedient, worshiping human life we never could, and He has offered it to the Father as one of us, for us. By residing in us, the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of Christ—joins us to Him and teaches us to rest there, fully known and deeply loved.

And then that rest turns our eyes outward. When our worth is held in Christ, we don’t need other people to prove it for us. We can stop sizing up the room: who can help me, who might hurt me, who’s in my way. We can stop scanning each other like barcodes for price and usefulness. The Spirit who opens our hearts to the love of Jesus opens our eyes to the people that His love has already embraced: the cashier whose name we’ve never asked, the coworker we’ve quietly written off, the person two rows back at church who always leaves early. Every one of them is someone Jesus has looked up at and seen.

Come as you are. You don’t have to introduce Jesus to the person you think you really are. He already knows. He has stopped under your tree. He has seen you. He has called you by name.

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For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.
—Luke 19:10

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
—Hebrews 4:15–16

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
—1 Corinthians 13:12

Seen, known, loved.

Len Netti — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 20:34:55 GMT

And still, You love us.

We can sit beside someone in church for years and know very little of what’s really going on for them. We recognize their face. We know their name. We know their job. We even know the cadence of the greeting they always give us. We exchange a few familiar words. But that ache beneath their smile? The sorrow behind their silence? All of that remains veiled. And so does ours. We long to be known, even as we wonder how much of ourselves we dare let somebody see.

But Jesus knows us completely. Not in theory. Not from a distance. He has entered our actual humanity, borne our sin, carried our shame, held our secrets, and brought our human life through death into His risen, blazing fellowship with the Father. The One who knows everything we conceal is the One who has given Himself for us without reserve. We can come into His presence with the whole truth of our lives. Our welcome is not in question. It never will be. It is accomplished, secured, unshakeable in Him.

As the Holy Spirit roots us into that assurance, something in us shifts. We become free to give another person our attention—to linger long enough for a sorrow to surface, for a guarded story to get told, for a face we thought we knew to become a soul we begin to see. The call to worship that follows invites us to rest in Christ’s love and discover how that love opens our eyes to the person beside us, where the miracle of being known becomes the miracle of knowing.

Themes

Fully known and loved • Unmerited acceptance • Grace • Seeing others • Incarnation • Christ made sin • The Father’s embrace • Christ’s solidarity in suffering • Communion with God • Overflowing love

The Father sees beyond our appearances, beyond our accomplishments and failures, beyond whatever mask we’re wearing. And still, He loves us.

Scripture reading

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Psalm 139:1–2
Luke 19:5
1 John 4:11

This call to worship1 is about an unfortunate reality in our lives: we can spend years alongside people—in class, at work, even in church—and never truly see or know them.

Yet Jesus sees us. He sees them. He sees through our masks. He knows us far more deeply than our therapist, than our closest friend, than even we know ourselves, and He loves us anyway. And it is this astonishing love that frees us to truly see and love each other.

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King David wrote these lyrics to a song:

O Lord, 
You have searched me 
and known me!
You know when I sit down 
and when I rise up;
You discern my thoughts from afar.


Luke records the story of Zacchaeus. And in that story he says:

When Jesus came to the place, 
He looked up and saw him, 
and said to him, 
“Zacchaeus, 
hurry and come down, 
for today I must stay at your house.”


And the disciple and Apostle John wrote this in his first letter:

Beloved, 
if God loved us in this way, 
we also ought to love one another.

Prayer

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Gracious Father,
We’re here, again, 
in Your presence.  
And we’re here 
with grateful hearts. 

We’re grateful because 
we don’t have to 
establish anything with You. 
We don’t have to…
set the record straight 
or clear the air 
or make ourselves acceptable. 

We already have the perfect relationship with You.
It’s been set in Jesus Christ. 
And now we get to be with You!
And we’re amazed 
by the wonder and love of it all.

You actually know us more 
than we even know ourselves. 
You see beyond our appearances, 
beyond our accomplishments and failures, 
beyond whatever mask we’re wearing. 
And still, 
You love us.

What an extraordinary thing it is 
to be completely known
—and loved—
by You!

Lord Jesus, 
You’re the One who truly sees us.
Not because You have all our stats, 
all our data, 
all the info on our lives,
but because You entered the very life we live.
You entered our hunger and weariness, 
our sorrow and disappointment, 
our temptation and suffering.
You entered the depths of our broken humanness.
You entered the darkest parts of our stories.
You entered our deepest longings. 
And You haven’t turned away.

You carried our sin. 

And You brought us 
into the embrace 
of Your Father's love. 

Holy Spirit, 
as we worship together now, 
open our hearts 
to receive fully 
this astonishing grace. 
Teach us to rest 
in the joy of being fully known 
and deeply loved.

And in that place of rest, 
open our eyes to truly see each other—
the person sitting next to us, 
the person in the other row, 
the person we’ve not spoken to in weeks—
as precious persons whom Jesus loves.

May today’s worship 
pull us deeper into Your fellowship, 
and may Your love overflow through us 
into the lives of others.

We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, 
our risen and living Lord.

Amen.

Know someone hiding behind a halo? Give ’em a nudge!

Go deeper.

This call to worship was given to the small assembly of Christians who gathered at Pathway Church in Beaverdam, Michigan, on October 18, 2026.

There’s room for you at the table.

Len Netti — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 02:26:24 GMT

Before we ever reached out to You, You reached out to us in Jesus Christ.

Before we could set a place for anyone at any table, He set a place for us at His.

And that’s where hospitality truly begins.

We think of hospitality as something we offer: like a warm hello at the door, an extra chair pulled up to the table, a dinner made and carried to a grieving neighbor. Those are meaningful offerings. But whatever we offer as hospitality, starts with what the Father has done for us in Jesus Christ, and with what the Holy Spirit enables us to receive from the Father. Only then do we have something to share.

But many of us aren’t quite sure we’ve received anything. We love God deeply, and yet carry a picture of Him in our wallet that makes us anxious. It’s a photo of a distant Father behind a closed door, weighing whether we’ve been obedient enough, repentant enough, faithful enough to be let in. We wonder if maybe we’ve disappointed Him too many times? Does He really want someone like me at His table?

Jesus answered that question with a story. A son who has squandered everything walks home rehearsing his speech, hoping for a place among the hired hands. But while he’s still a long way off, his father sees him, feels compassion, and runs toward him. His father’s arms are around him before he can get a word out. The robe, the ring, and the feast all come before he has proven anything.

That is the Father that Jesus reveals. There’s no reluctant God hiding behind the face of Jesus, waiting to be talked into loving us. The love that runs down the road toward us is the Father’s own love, and it has come to us in His Son.

Before we ever reached out to Him, He reached out to us in Jesus Christ. Before we could try to become worthy, He embraced us with grace. Before we could find our way home, His beloved Son came and brought us home. All the way home.

The eternal Son took up our humanity as it actually is—the broken, wandering humanity we live in every day—and, without ever sinning, completely healed it from the inside. He carried it to the cross and out of the grave. And when He ascended to the Father, He took it with Him.

And now the One seated at the Father’s right hand is there with our humanity—one of us, our Brother! Because He is there, there is a place for us there too. And through Him, we have access to the Father. Strangers who once stood in the doorway, hoping to be admitted, have been brought inside, given a place at the table, and called beloved children.

This is why we can come to the Father tired, distracted, grieving, or discouraged. Our place at the table rests in Jesus Christ. He has already offered the Father the trust, the thanks, the love, and the life that we offer so unevenly, and He offers them as one of us, with our humanity, on our behalf. By the Spirit of Christ in us, our weak and wandering praise, our faltering prayers, our distracted attention are all taken up into His praise, His prayers, His attention. We come with grateful hearts to a welcome already given and always present.

It’s really that simple.

But we live as though it isn’t. We treat the Father’s love like a transaction, as if our place at His table depended on how well we show up at the table. And when we get anxious about our place, we inevitably start inspecting other people’s places. Jesus told His story to religious people who were grumbling because He welcomed sinners and ate with them. The story ends with the older brother outside the party, refusing to go in because the feast was thrown for someone who didn’t deserve it. And the father goes after him too!

But we seem to forget all of that. And it shows in how we show up. But here’s the thing: whatever that’s all about, grace lets us tell the truth about it and confess it. We confess all our forgetting to a Father who has already met us with forgiveness in His Son. And then we take our seat at the table.

Jesus is the Host. He prepared the place. He set the table. He gave Himself as the feast. Every one of us is a guest eating His bread. And any guest who understands that can just reach over and pass the bread.

And that’s really what we want; isn’t it? So ask Him for eyes to see the lonely. Ask Him for compassion for the wounded. Ask Him for patience with those who struggle. And we’ll start noticing the widow sitting by herself, the teenager with an honest question, the person walking back into church after not being there for a long time. And what’s so great about that is Jesus isn’t asking us to become their savior. He’s just inviting us to make ourselves available to His love for them. He does the healing; we get the joy of making room. We get the delight of being hospitable.

The Holy Spirit—the Spirit of Christ in us—makes all of this hospitality our life. He quiets our anxious hearts. He turns our eyes from the instability of our own spiritual performance to the unchanging faithfulness of Jesus Christ, and then out toward the world He loves. He teaches us to cry “Abba, Father” right along with the Son, and He assures us that we do, in fact, belong. Our feelings may shift from one Sunday to the next. But Jesus remains our Lord, our Brother, and our gracious Savior.

Bring your tired heart and wandering mind. Listen for the invitation of Jesus. You’ll hear Him:

Come. There is room for you. You are welcome here.

And because there is room for us, we can make room for one another.

Themes

Divine hospitality • Embrace • Reconciliation • Communion with God • Belonging • Christ our host • Welcoming one another • Participation in Christ • Assurance • The faithfulness of Christ • Freedom from performance • Astonishing grace • Mercy • Compassion

Forgive us for the times we’ve forgotten Your astonishing grace and lived as though the gospel weren’t true.

Scripture reading

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John 14:2–3
Ephesians 2:18–19
Romans 15:7

This call to worship is about hospitality.1 Whenever we offer hospitality, it really begins with what the Father has done for us in Jesus Christ and what the Holy Spirit enables us to receive from the Father and then share.

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The Apostle John records these words of Jesus:

In my Father's house 
are many rooms. 
If it were not so, 
would I have told you 
that I go to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you, 
I will come again 
and will take you to Myself, 
that where I am 
you may be also.


The Apostle Paul wrote these words in a letter to his friends in Ephesus: 

Through Jesus Christ 
we have access in one Spirit 
to the Father.
So then 
you are no longer strangers and aliens,
but you are fellow citizens 
with the saints 
and with the members 
of the household of God.


And he wrote these words in a letter to the church in Rome:

Therefore welcome one another 
as Christ has welcomed you, 
for the glory of God.

Prayer

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Gracious, 
compassionate, 
faithful, 
self-giving 
Father,
We’re here again with grateful hearts;
it’s really that simple.

We’re overwhelmed 
by the wonder of Your love, 
by how gracious You are toward us,
by the communion we now have with You 
that Jesus Christ opened for us!

You welcome us here, 
even if we’re tired,
or distracted, 
or grieving,
or discouraged. 

Before we ever reached out to You, 
You reached out to us in Jesus Christ. 
Before we could try to become worthy, 
You embraced us with grace. 
Before we could find our way home, 
Your beloved Son came and brought us home to You.

How wonderful it is to know 
that we aren’t strangers
standing at Your doorway
hoping to be admitted. 
Through Christ, 
You have welcomed us into Your family. 
You’ve given us a place at Your table, 
and You have called us Your beloved children.

Father, 
forgive us for the times we’ve forgotten Your astonishing grace
and lived as though the gospel weren’t true.
Forgive us for when we imagined we had to earn Your love, 
and when we withheld from others 
the welcome You have so freely given us.

Lord Jesus, 
You are the gracious Host 
who’s preparing a place for us. 
So then 
teach us to become faithful witnesses 
and faithful participants 
in what You are doing.

Teach us to open our hearts and our lives 
to those around us. 
Give us eyes to see the lonely.
Give us compassion for the wounded.
Give us patience with those who struggle. 
Give us humility to remember 
that we all stand before You 
as recipients of mercy.

You’re not asking us to become anyone's savior. 
You’re simply inviting us 
to make ourselves available 
to Your love for them.

Holy Spirit, 
quiet our anxious hearts, then. 
Free us from feeling like we gotta prove ourselves. 
Direct us away from the instability 
of our own spiritual performance. 
Direct us toward the unchanging faithfulness of Jesus Christ
Bring us into the joy 
and into the peace 
of knowing that we belong to the Father 
through his beloved Son.

And as we worship together now, 
may we hear again the gracious invitation of Jesus:

Come. 
There is room for you. 
You are welcome here.

Enable our worship to overflow with gratitude. 
Enable our fellowship to reflect Your hospitality. 
Enable our lives to bear witness to Your reconciling love.

We pray 
in the name of Jesus Christ, 
our Lord, 
our Brother, 
and our gracious Savior.

Amen.

Go deeper.

Pass the bread!

A call to worship for the small assembly of Christians who gathered at Pathway Church in Beaverdam, Michigan, on October 11, 2026.

He comes looking.

Len Netti — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 20:21:19 GMT

When we can’t find our way home, You come find us.

The shepherd doesn’t wait for the sheep to come home before calling it his own. When it disappears into the thicket, when it wanders, it’s still his. It’s claimed. It’s named. It’s still precious to him. He doesn’t write it off as a loss. He goes after it. He searches until he finds what is his.

Maybe we come to worship seeking God. Maybe we come hungry, distracted, weary, hopeful, or unsure why we came at all. But our seeking is never the first move. God has already come toward us. In Jesus Christ, He has entered the country where we are lost and come looking for us.

God seeks us!

Our worship can be misconstrued as ascent. This call to worship1 declares God’s descent—His relentless coming after us.

We’re all too familiar with wandering. We know the ache of shame that drives us into hiding, the fear that whispers we are unwanted, the suspicion that our lostness has made us unlovable. We know what it is to run, to hide, to wonder if God has given up.

In all of that, Jesus doesn’t wait for us to find our way back. He enters the thicket. He steps into our darkness. The eternal Son takes our humanity into union with Himself, bears our suffering, descends into our death, and carries us through His death, resurrection, and ascension, all the way home to the Father. In Jesus, the love of the Father is not a theory. It’s not a theological concept. It is a rescue. It is a homecoming. We discover just how deeply the Father loves us.

Then the Holy Spirit opens our hearts to the home Jesus has made for us with the Father. He teaches us to trust what we can’t see, to believe that the Father’s love is for us, not just for the worthy or the strong. He gives us the courage to speak the impossible word: Father. And when our prayers falter—when they are tangled, half-formed, or lost in silence—Jesus hears them, takes them into His own perfect prayer, and brings them before the Father as His own.

From within that love, something shifts in us. Our eyes stop looking inward and start turning outward. We see the neighbor who we haven’t seen in a long time, the friend whose shame has driven them underground, the person who is suffering whom we’ve avoided because their pain is unsettling to us. Christ doesn’t let us stay spectators. He draws us into His own love for them. And we go, not as rescuers, but as friends who have been found, carried, and welcomed home ourselves.

And, in the end, the Shepherd’s joy becomes our joy. And His compassion becomes more to us than an idea we hold on to. It takes shape in our own life together.

So, let’s receive the love that’s come searching for us. And when we do, we’ll open our hearts to those Christ loves and calls us to love, too.

Themes

Divine pursuit • Reconciliation • Homecoming • Adoption • Christ’s sonship • Communion with God • Mission • Compassion • Humility • Grace • Worship • Christ’s intercession • Joy

If we want to know whether God loves us, we need only see Jesus coming after us.

Scripture reading

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Luke 15:4–6
Psalm 139:7–10
2 Corinthians 5:18–20

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The historian Luke recorded these words of Jesus: 

Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. 
Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country 
and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 
And when he finds it, 
he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. 
Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 
“Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.”


King David penned these lyrics: 

Where can I go from Your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from Your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, You are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, You are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there Your hand will guide me,
    Your right hand will hold me fast.


Paul wrote this in a letter to the church in Corinth: 

God, through Christ, 
reconciled us to Himself 
and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 
that is, in Christ, 
God was reconciling the world to Himself, 
not counting their trespasses against them, 
and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ; 
God is making His appeal through us. 
We implore you on behalf of Christ, 
be reconciled to God.

Prayer

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
We’re all here again this morning.
And it’s because You first came looking for us.

We don’t have to persuade You toward us 
with our intensity 
or our sincerity.
In Jesus Christ, 
You couldn’t possibly get any closer. 

When we wander, 
You don’t abandon us.
When we hide, 
You call our names.
When we can’t find our way home, 
You come find us.

No matter how estranged from You we become, 
it never means that You become estranged from us.

Father, 
we praise You for the love 
that refuses to let us go.
If we want to know whether You love us, 
all we need do is see Jesus coming after us

Lord Jesus Christ, 
we praise You 
because You didn’t love us from a distance. 
You came down into our darkness. 
You took our humanity 
into union with yourself.
And then 
You entered our fear, 
our shame, 
our sorrow, 
and our death. 
You carried our lost humanity 
upon Your shoulders, 
and in Your death 
and resurrection 
and ascension
you brought us home 
to the Father.

Holy Spirit, 
open our hearts again today 
to the joy of this good news. 
Silence all the voices that tell us
we are forgotten, 
or that we are unwanted, 
or that we are beyond the reach of grace. 

We don’t have to manufacture our sonship!
As the Spirit of adoption, 
You draw us into Christ’s sonship. 
And there You enable us to respond 
from within that communion
with these words, 
“Abba, Father.” 

Turn our eyes away from ourselves this morning; 
turn them toward Christ. 
Draw us into His communion with the Father.
Draw us also into His love for the world
and into the Son’s mission to the world.

Give us the heart of the Shepherd 
for those who are wandering. 
Give us the compassion of Christ 
for those who are suffering. 
Give us the courage to enter the places 
where others are afraid to go.
Keep us from heroic activism.
We can only enter such places 
because Jesus has already gone there.

Keep us from looking down upon anyone. 
Remind us that we seek 
only because we ourselves have been sought; 
we love 
only because we have been loved; 
we forgive 
only because we have been forgiven.

There is no spiritual superiority. 
We haven’t succeeded where others have failed. 
We are only in the lives of others 
because we live entirely by Your grace.

Make us a people of reconciliation. 
Make this church a place where the lonely are welcomed, 
where the wounded are cared for,
where the ashamed find grace, 
where the lost hear the joyful news 
that the Shepherd has come looking for them.

So gather us now around Jesus Christ.
In Him, you, God, have come to humanity, 
and in Him, humanity is brought to You.
Our faltering worship is brought into His worship. 
Our feeble faith is brought into His faithfulness.
Our prayers are brought into His intercession.

Receive our worship.
Fill us with Your joy.
And send us again into the world 
as witnesses 
to Your reconciling love.

In the name of Jesus Christ, 
our Good Shepherd,
Amen.

Go deeper.

Know a wandering sheep? Pass it on.

A call to worship for the small assembly of Christians who gathered at Pathway Church in Beaverdam, Michigan, on October 4, 2026.

Your brother is on the throne.

Len Netti — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 11:14:39 GMT

The One who is seated at the Father’s right hand is human.1

That should stop us in our tracks. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, remains the man who was born of Mary, the man who grew up among His people, the man who knew hunger, weariness, friendship, and sorrow. The One who is right now reigning over creation is the One who wept beside a grave and suffered death Himself. His life was bodily. And so also was His resurrection. And so also was His Ascension. The humanity He took for Himself when He came among us, now belongs to Him forever. Our human Brother is on the throne.2

We tend to pass over the Ascension rather quickly. We know about Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and Pentecost. Somewhere between Easter and Pentecost, Jesus goes to heaven. We acknowledge it, and then quickly move along. But take a moment and hang out right there. The Son who came from the Father to meet us in our humanity is now taking that very same humanity into the Father’s presence.

The Son came with a mission. And the whole movement of that mission—into our humanity, through His life, death, and resurrection, and then back into the Father’s presence in the Ascension—happened with our humanity united to Him. His work of salvation for us didn’t stop at forgiveness or at His rising from the dead. In Christ, it reaches its goal with us back in communion with the Father.3

In other words, Jesus doesn’t merely come down to where we are and repair our condition. He goes so much further! He brings the humanity He assumed back with Him into fellowship with God. The Ascension reveals to us the mind-blowing, true destination of all His saving work: human beings, in Christ, brought into the Son’s own communion with the Father.

God comes to humanity in the Son → and the Son takes humanity back to God.

His saving work isn’t just a thing that reaches us here where we are; it brings us all the way home into communion with the Father.

He came into our actual condition. He assumed our fallen human nature. He lived within it without sin. And He healed it from the inside through His faithful life, His death, and His resurrection.4 And right now, that healed, risen humanity is with the Father. The Jesus who ascended is fully human and fully God. He is forever united to us in the humanity He made His own. And He is eternally one with the Father in the divine life He has always shared with Him.

Humanity now has a permanent place in the life of God!5 Think of what that means when shame tries to tell us we could never belong near Him. When loneliness feels like the deepest truth about us. When we can imagine God tolerating us but struggle to imagine being wanted, welcomed, loved.

In Jesus Christ, our humanity has been brought near to the Father. And by the Spirit—the Spirit of Christ who now lives in us—we share in His communion with the Father. We remain His creatures, fully human, but we are received by grace into the communion of love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is the welcome the Father Himself has given us through His Son.

Our life is hidden with Christ in God. And yet, despite this reality, we spend so much time looking inside ourselves to decide whether we belong. We inspect our faith. We revisit our repentance. We evaluate yesterday’s prayers and this morning’s obedience. We remember how distracted we were during worship and wonder what that says about our standing with God. Even our desire to be faithful (or, in some moments, our lack of it) becomes an occasion for anxious self-measurement.

But none of that is where our acceptance lies. Our acceptance rests in Jesus Christ.

He stands before the Father for us right now. His sacrifice is complete; His priestly ministry continues. He brings us—the human us—into the Father’s presence in Himself, holding us in the communion He has established for us through His own faithful human life.

The King who governs all things is also our High Priest; He’s the Brother who truly understands our human weakness and is interceding for us. Before we begin to pray, He is already praying for us.6 When our attention wanders, His faithfulness holds us regardless. When we cannot find our words, we are nevertheless perfectly represented by the One who has fully joined Himself to us—joined Himself to our very humanness—and will be so joined forever!

This means we can tell the truth. We can confess the sin we have been defending. We can bring the grief we have been trying to contain. We can acknowledge that our faith feels weak. And we can do so confidently and without fear. Why? Because Christ’s always-on, always-faithful, always-perfect intercession for us gives us courage to repent and believe, to pray and obey. By His Spirit—who is in us—we are sharing in what He is offering perfectly to the Father on our behalf.

Even my faltering prayers can begin right there in all their falteringness: “Jesus, You are praying for me. Gather my prayer into Yours.”

The Ascension also turns our attention to the life we have ahead of us. In Acts, the disciples stand looking into the sky, and the question comes: “Why do you stand looking into heaven?” The same Jesus will return. And in the meantime, we have been given a world in which to bear witness to Him.

And to do so, we were promised the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit came. Peter’s Pentecost sermon makes the connection explicit: the very same Jesus whom God raised from the dead has been exalted to His right hand and has poured out the promised Holy Spirit—His Spirit—in us. The ascended Lord now shares His life with His people here, in the history we are actually living, through His Spirit living in us.

The Holy Spirit—also called the Spirit of Christ—brings us Christ Himself; it is His Spirit. We do not presently see Jesus walking among us as the disciples did. His body cannot physically be with all of us, but His Spirit can. And in this way, we become the Body of Christ. Through the Spirit we are joined to Him, made alive in Him, and drawn into the ministry that he continues even now. He is reigning now from Heaven. And He is acting in us now here on earth. Our witness, our service, our prayers are all a continuing participation in His.7

Christ is doing something → and by the Spirit, He joins us to Himself. → And, so, then, our witness, service, and prayers become creaturely participation in what He is doing.

Our actions are enclosed within His ministry. In fact, they are generated by His ministry. And they depend on His ongoing ministry. We do not extend Christ’s work because His work is otherwise deficient without us, nor do we become Christ in His place. He remains the living Lord and the acting subject of His ministry. Yet by His Spirit, He gives us a real share in it.

When we pray to the Father, we are not beginning a relationship with the Father from scratch; we are drawn into Christ’s own priestly communion with the Father. When we bear witness to others, we are not making Christ present by our own power; the living Christ is already present and active by His Spirit whether we participate or not, and when we do, He takes up our testimony into His witness. When we serve another person, our service becomes an instrument of His continuing love.

That frees us to enter the day without carrying the salvation of the world on our shoulders. It is not dependent upon us. Not in any way. We can listen carefully to a neighbor, speak the truth about Jesus, seek reconciliation, care for someone who is lonely. We can serve with courage and leave the results with the King. He is the King. He reigns! Not our actions. And that means His reign gives our small acts of faithfulness their place and purpose.

And the Spirit of Christ who is in us keeps directing us, over and over again, to the same Jesus—the only Jesus Christ there is—the truly human Jesus given to us in Holy Scripture. And we need that, because we are quite capable of producing a Jesus who agrees with us, endorses our resentments, and blesses our plans. A white nationalist Jesus. A black liberation Jesus. A trans Jesus. A Marxist revolutionary Jesus. A demythologized Jesus. A reconstructed “historical Jesus”. A therapeutic Jesus. But Jesus Christ is not ours to invent.8 He has given Himself to us in a very particular life and in a very particular history. The apostolic witness brings us again and again and again back to this Jewish man from Nazareth who lived among us, died for us, rose bodily, and ascended to the Father. Through that witness—that witness of a particular Jewish man named Jesus—the Spirit makes the living Lord known and teaches us to receive Him as He gives Himself (not as we wish Him to be).

And it is that Jesus who remains human even now. The humanity He assumed in the Incarnation did not end at the resurrection or Ascension. Nor did He leave behind the particular humanity He had lived and take on some generalized or neutral human form. The eternal Son did not become humanity in the abstract; He became this man—Jesus of Nazareth, born of Mary, a Jew of Israel.9 And it is this same Jesus who was crucified, raised bodily from the dead, and taken into the Father’s presence. His resurrection glorified His humanity; it did not replace it. His Ascension did not dissolve His human particularity into some universal humanity. The One who reigns with the Father is still Jesus—the embodied human being who lived among us, suffered for us, died, and was raised from the dead.

That tells us something about our own embodied lives. If the eternal Son has permanently taken embodied human existence to Himself, then bodily creaturely life cannot be spiritually trivial or disposable. Our bodies are not spiritually unimportant, and the ordinary work of caring for bodily life matters to God. Preparing a meal, repairing a home, doing our work, tending a garden, helping someone wash and dress—all of this takes place within the good creation He has not abandoned and will one day renew.

We can receive these ordinary things from the Father and offer them back in thanksgiving. Our work becomes a place to practice truthfulness and generosity. Our meals become occasions of welcome. Our care for a weakening body becomes an act of love for someone whose future is held in Christ.

This reaches us when we are sick, when we are aging, when we grieve. We know how much remains unfinished. Bodies weaken. People die. Reconciliation can take years, and some wounds remain painfully open. Christ’s glorified humanity gives us a definite hope in the midst of that suffering: the future God promises us already has its living reality in Jesus. When He appears, what is hidden with Him will be revealed. His risen life is the pledge of our resurrection and of creation’s renewal.

Jesus remains embodied → therefore embodied human life matters to God → therefore ordinary bodily care and creaturely work matter → because creation is destined for renewal, not disposal.

The time we have while we await His return is itself a gift of mercy.10 Christ has ascended from our sight, but He has not withdrawn His presence or His reign. The kingdom has already broken into our history in His death and resurrection, yet its fullness remains hidden until He appears again. We live in that space between what Christ has already accomplished and what will one day be revealed openly to all.

And that space in between is grace. The fact that Christ has not yet appeared in the unveiled glory of His kingdom means that time is still being given for the gospel to be heard, for repentance and faith, for forgiveness and reconciliation, for witness and service. God has not abandoned the world to itself while we wait. In His patience, He continues to hold open the day of grace.

Nor are we simply waiting for something that is entirely absent. By the Holy Spirit, the life of the coming kingdom is already reaching us here. We already share in the risen life of the One who is coming. We already receive foretastes of the future that will one day fill all creation. The age to come has begun in Jesus Christ even while this present age continues.

So today is not merely another day before Jesus returns. It is a day given to us in the patience of God: time to repent, time to believe, time to ask forgiveness, time to forgive, time to bear witness, time to love our neighbor. We can receive that time without panic and without passivity. We do not have to bring the kingdom ourselves, and we do not have to fear that history is slipping out of Christ’s hands. Our future is held by the One who has already risen from the dead and who will come again.

And the risen life He shares with us by the Spirit is already doing something in us in this in-between time: it is restoring us toward the humanity we were created for. He is making us truly human.11 Jesus is not divine life added onto humanity; He is the true human being. In Him we see human life rightly related to the Father—trusting Him, receiving from Him, responding to Him in faithfulness, and giving Himself freely in love. He is what humanity is when humanity is reconciled to God.

The life of Jesus is not merely an example placed before us for imitation. Christ has drawn us into His own relationship with the Father.

By the Spirit, we are given a real share in His communion with the Father. That changes the very ground on which we live. If my identity and belonging no longer have to be secured by self-protection, self-justification, achievement, or others’ approval, I become freer to turn outward. I can attend fully to another person because I do not have to spend my energy defending or establishing myself. I can forgive without needing to win. I can serve without making my service prove my worth. I can rejoice in the good of another without experiencing it as a threat to me. Communion with God opens us toward others.

Apart from Christ, our humanity is distorted; we are curved inward upon ourselves—fearful, defensive, self-protective, grasping. In Christ, human life is restored to its proper orientation: toward the Father, toward other people, and toward creation in love. And this restoration is grounded in what Christ has already accomplished in our humanity. The humanity He assumed has been reconciled and healed in His own person through the whole course of His incarnate life—through His faithful obedience, through His suffering and death, through His resurrection, and through His Ascension. He did not merely act upon humanity from the outside, shouting instructions at us through the quarantine glass. He entered the quarantine zone. He took our humanity to Himself and lived our human life faithfully before the Father.

In His death, He carried our estrangement and sin thoroughly into judgment. And in His resurrection, human life emerged from death healed and renewed. And in His Ascension, He carried that risen humanity into the Father’s presence. The Ascension is therefore not the moment when the healing of humanity begins, nor is it simply that being in heaven heals us. The healing belongs to the whole saving life and work of Jesus Christ. What the Ascension reveals is where that reconciled humanity now belongs: in communion with the Father.

And because the Spirit of Christ in us unites us to Christ, the healing accomplished in Him simply becomes ours by participation. We are not healed by becoming something other than human, and we are not spiritually elevated beyond our creatureliness. We are healed as we are joined to the Son in whom our humanity has already been reconciled to God. Sharing in Christ’s life makes us more, not less, human. It restores us toward what human life was created to be: life received from the Father, lived before the Father, and opened outward in love toward others and toward His good creation.

The Ascension tells us something astonishing about both Jesus Christ and ourselves. The One who sits at the right hand of the Father is still the man Jesus. He has not left His humanity behind. He has taken it with Him into the Father’s presence, healed and reconciled, and by the Spirit He gives us a share in His life there.

That means our life with God does not finally rest on the strength of our faith, the steadiness of our prayers, or our ability to hold ourselves together. It rests in Jesus Christ. Our humanity is represented in Him. Our prayers are gathered into His. Our obedience takes place within His faithfulness. Our life is hidden with Him in God.

And the One who holds us there is also at work here. By His Spirit, the ascended Christ shares His life with His people in the middle of ordinary history. He draws us out of ourselves and toward the Father, toward one another, and toward the good creation He will renew. He teaches us to live more truly as the human beings we were made to be.

We do not yet see what we shall be. We still know weakness, sin, grief, and death. But the future of humanity is already present in Jesus Christ.12 A human being has passed through death, risen bodily, and entered the Father’s presence. And He has not gone there without us.

Our hope, then, is not that we will somehow find our own way to God. Our hope is that the One who came all the way to us has taken our humanity all the way home.

Our Brother is on the throne.

A man is on the throne.

Len Netti — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 00:41:33 GMT

Make us more and more truly human.

The Ascension of Jesus Christ has changed everything. Not just a detail in our creed. Everything. The truth about God. The truth about ourselves. The truth about what it means to live. We do not find those truths by looking inside ourselves—to our shifting moods, our spiritual stamina, or our best efforts. They are given to us in the living Jesus Christ.

In the Ascension, the Son of God carried the human nature He had assumed as one of us—our flesh-and-blood humanity—into the Father’s blazing presence. We are not outsiders, not orphans, not beggars at the door. In Christ, humanity has been welcomed, healed, and given a home in the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our humanity is not alien to God; our future and our belonging are secured in Christ. And by the Holy Spirit, we are joined to Christ and given a real share in the life that is already ours in Him.

The Jesus who stands for us now is still truly human. He is our ascended High Priest. He knows our weakness. He intercedes for us. Our acceptance is securely anchored! It is anchored in His own faithfulness, not in the strength or constancy of ours.

From the right hand of the Father, Jesus pours out the Holy Spirit—not merely to give us spiritual help or make us better versions of ourselves, but to bring us Christ Himself. By the Spirit, the risen and ascended Jesus makes His life present to us, unites us to Himself, and draws us into His communion with the Father, into His mission, and into His love for the world.

So we can stop the anxious self-surveillance. Is my faith strong enough? Are my prayers sincere enough? Is my worship pure enough? We can lay down the exhausting project of self-measurement. Instead, we are set free to live outwardly: to repent, to believe, to love, to forgive, to serve, to work, to suffer, to age, to care for the world God loves. We do all this in hope, because the glorified humanity of Jesus—right now on the throne—shows us what God intends for human life.

The Ascension does not call us to escape the earth. We are not meant to stand gazing into the sky as though waiting for Christ meant withdrawing from the world. The Ascension gives us this time—time to repent, believe, bear witness, love our neighbors, and participate in Christ’s mission while we await His appearing. Christ reigns. His Spirit lives in us. And with that, He sends us deeper into the grit and glory of ordinary human life. And as the Spirit frees us from self-obsession, we become more truly human, enjoying what we’ve been made for: communion with God and one another.

So we worship1—not to climb our way to God, but because in Jesus Christ, God has come to us. And He has brought our humanity home in Himself. And now, by the Spirit, He gathers our unfinished lives into the Son’s perfect communion with the Father.

Themes

The ascended Christ • Vicarious humanity of Christ • High priestly intercession • Acceptance in Christ • Freedom from self-measurement • Participation in His ministry • The Christ of Scripture • Embodied life matters • The future promised to us • Truly human • Participation in worship • Ordinary work • Christ’s return

There is now permanent room for us with God.

Scripture reading

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Acts 1:9–11
Hebrews 4:14–16
Colossians 3:1–4
Acts 2:32–33

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The historian Luke records this story: 

After Jesus had spoken these things, 
He was taken up before their very eyes, 
and a cloud hid Him from their sight. 
As they were looking intently into the sky, 
two men stood beside them and said, 
“Why do you stand looking into heaven? 
This same Jesus, 
who has been taken from you into heaven, 
will come again.”


The writer of Hebrews wrote: 

Since we have a great High Priest 
who has passed through the heavens, 
Jesus the Son of God, 
let us hold firmly to our faith. 
We do not have a High Priest 
who is unable to understand our weakness. 
So let us come boldly to the throne of grace, 
that we may receive mercy 
and find grace to help us 
in our time of need.


Paul wrote: 

Since you have been raised with Christ, 
set your hearts on the things above, 
where Christ is, 
seated at the right hand of God. 
For you have died, 
and your life is hidden with Christ in God.


And when Peter preached his first post-Ascension sermon to the crowds, he exclaimed: 

God raised this Jesus to life, 
and we are all witnesses of it. 
Exalted to the right hand of God, 
Jesus has received from the Father 
the promised Holy Spirit 
and has poured out 
what you now see and hear.

Prayer

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Father, 
we worship You 
because Jesus Christ is risen, 
is ascended, 
and is reigning.

Your Son 
who came down to us 
has taken our humanity 
— our humanness; all of it — 
with Him 
into Your very presence 
and into communion with You.

He didn’t leave any of it behind. 
He remains truly human. 
He is not ashamed 
to call us His brothers and sisters. 
The one who is seated 
at Your right hand 
is still our Brother—
the Jesus who knew 
hunger and weariness, 
friendship and sorrow, 
suffering and death.
The One who now stands for us 
in Your very presence
is the One who has fully joined Himself to us.

And because our humanity 
is all right there in Him
in Your presence,
right now,
we know 
that we are not shut out from You. 
There is now permanent room 
for us with You.
In Christ, 
we are not strangers 
standing outside Your life;
we have been brought near 
and we have been welcomed 
into Your very life and love 
of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Our life is hidden with Christ in You.

So free us, Father,
from constantly looking inward 
to decide whether we belong.
Keep us 
from measuring our standing with You 
by how strong our faith feels, 
or how sincere our repentance seems, 
or how focused our prayers are, 
or how well we think we’ve obeyed.

Our acceptance doesn’t rest inside us.
Our acceptance rests in Your Son, Jesus Christ.
He is faithful when we are weak.
He prays for us when our prayers falter.
He stands before You for us.

So turn our eyes away from ourselves 
and turn them toward our ascended High Priest.

And Father, 
keep us from standing still 
and looking toward heaven.
You have given us this day, 
this life, 
these neighbors, 
these relationships, 
and this world 
in which to follow Jesus.

Give us grace to repent.
Give us courage to believe.
Give us eyes to see where Christ is at work.
Give us strength to participate 
in His ministry 
that’s already unfolding all around us.

Teach us to love, 
to forgive, 
to serve, 
to speak the truth, 
to care for the lonely, 
and do the ordinary work 
You have placed before us.

And because Jesus has ascended, 
He has poured out His Spirit on us

So Holy Spirit, 
we know that You do not merely dispense spiritual help.
You bring us Christ himself.

Make the living Jesus known among us.
Keep us from inventing a Jesus 
out of our own wishes or imagination.
Lead us again and again 
to the Jesus given to us in Holy Scripture—
the Jesus who lived among us, 
died for us, 
rose bodily from the grave, 
ascended bodily to the Father, 
and reigns even now.

And because Jesus ascended 
and took his physical life with Him, 
teach us not to despise 
our physical lives.
Our bodies matter to You.
Our physical work matters.
Our meals matter.
Our homes matter.
Our sickness matters.
Our aging matters.

The humanness of Jesus 
has been raised and glorified, 
and in Him we see the future 
You have promised to us.

So even when our bodies weaken 
and our lives feel unfinished, 
give us hope.
What You have begun in Jesus 
You will bring to completion.

And as we do share in the life of Your Son, 
make us more and more truly human.
Make us less afraid.
Less turned in on ourselves.
More free to love.
More ready to forgive.
More willing to serve.
More able to rejoice.
More alive to You 
and to one another.

And now, as we worship, 
lift our hearts to Christ.
Take our distracted thoughts, 
our weak prayers, 
our tired hearts, 
and our unfinished faith, 
and gather them all up 
into the perfect worship 
of Jesus before You.

For Jesus Christ is risen.
Jesus Christ has ascended.
Jesus Christ reigns.
Jesus Christ intercedes for us.
Jesus Christ has poured out the Holy Spirit.
And Jesus Christ will come again.

Father, 
through the Son 
and in the Holy Spirit, 
receive our worship.

Amen.

This call to worship is accompanied by an essay.

Someone in your life needs this kind of freedom.

A call to worship given to the small assembly of Christians who gathered at Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on Sunday, September 27, 2026.

Already inside.

Len Netti — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 23:54:21 GMT

We’re not beloved because we’re particularly useful.t

A lot happens in our lives on any given day. And whatever all of that is, we live from it as though it were the only true reality of our lives. It’s hard to imagine living from any other reality other than the one unfolding for us each day. But whatever that reality is, it is being held inside something far more real, far more true, far more certain.

This call to worship1 invites us into the reality that our lives exist inside the living ministry of Jesus Christ. The Triune God—who is Himself a beautiful, unbelievable, astonishing communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—has drawn us into that very same communion with Himself! And that changes everything about how we understand our lives. It shapes who we are, what we are for, how we worship, how we serve, and how we live through the ordinary moments given to us—grocery shopping, dental appointments, business meetings, classrooms, family dinners, and everything else that fills a human life.

At the center of this reality is Christ, our living High Priest—the One who gathers our human, unfolding life into His own faithful and perfect response to the Father. And in every one of those moments, the Holy Spirit liberates us to become fully alive as particular persons whose gifts, work, wounds, relationships, and ordinary responsibilities can all be used in Christ’s reconciling movement happening in each and every moment. Love isn’t some emotional feeling; it’s the shape our participation takes in those moments. Grace isn’t a commodity God dispenses to us; it’s the very ground that holds and sustains us in those moments. Vocation isn’t some professional aspiration; it is our lived expression from one such moment to the next.

This call to worship also calls us to recognize that the worship we offer together extends into the whole of life. Our work, relationships, responsibilities, creativity, suffering, and ordinary presence can all become part of our lived response to God in Christ. We have a real, meaningful, remarkable place within the Body of Christ, and the ordinary places we inhabit are alive with the possibility of communion, healing, flourishing, and faithful presence.

Each week, when we worship with others, we come before God to be reoriented to this reality—to what is already true in Christ—so that we may leave worship with clearer eyes, freer hearts, and a deeper readiness to join the ministry that He is already unfolding around us.

Themes

Participation in Christ • Communion • Grace • Union with Christ • Belonging • Christ’s priesthood • Divine initiative • Eyes to see • Liberation • Vocation • God’s story • Service • Love • Reconciling work • Ordinary life • Freedom from burden • Compassion • Hope

We’re not beloved because we’re particularly useful.

Scripture reading

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John 15:4–5
1 Peter 2:9
Colossians 3:12–14, 17

When we gather to worship, remember that we don’t have to prove ourselves to God; we gather to receive again the grace already given to us in Jesus Christ. We gather as people who already belong to Him. We’ve been given a place in His story. And we are invited to participate in His ministry.

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Jesus said the following:

Remain in Me, 
and I in you. 
As the branch can’t bear fruit by itself 
unless it remains in the vine, 
so neither can you, 
unless you remain in Me.
I am the vine. 
You are the branches. 
He who remains in Me and I in him 
bears much fruit, 
for apart from Me 
you can do nothing.


Jesus’ disciple, Peter, wrote the following:

You are a chosen race, 
You are a royal priesthood, 
You are a holy nation, 
You are a people for God’s own possession. 
You are these things 
so that you may proclaim 
the excellence of Him 
who called you out of darkness 
into His marvelous light.


And the Apostle Paul wrote this:

Put on therefore, 
as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, 
a heart of compassion, 
a heart of kindness, 
a heart of lowliness, 
a heart of humility, 
a heart of perseverance; 
bearing with one another, 
and forgiving each other.
Above all these things, 
walk in love, 
which is the bond of perfection.
Whatever you do, 
in word or in deed, 
do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, 
giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Prayer

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
we’re here this morning 
because You have called us 
into Your life.

It’s really just that. 

It’s not because 
we have spiritual aspirations. 
It’s not because 
we’re hoping for some kind of spiritual experience. 

You’ve drawn us into communion with You.
You want us to share in Your life. 
You want us to share in Your love. 
You have made us Your own.

We’re not beloved 
because we’re particularly useful.
We’re not beloved 
because our ministry is particularly helpful. 

Before we ever accomplished anything, 
before we had ever proven anything, 
before we could even make ourselves useful, 
You received us in Jesus Christ 
as Your beloved children.

Lord Jesus, 
You’re the vine, 
and we’re the branches.

Our life comes from You.

You’re not just some example of good ministry; 
You are the living High Priest 
who is doing ministry—
right now, doing ministry.
And You are pleased to have us—as Your body—
join Your ministry—
join Your reconciling work.

Our life isn’t in what we can do for You; 
it’s in what You have already done for us. 

So teach us to remain in You. 
Free us from any burden 
of trying to carry Your kingdom 
on our shoulders, 
and open our eyes 
to see where You are already at work.

You are already Minister.
You are already Priest.
You are already Intercessor.
Where can we share 
in what You are already doing? 

Holy Spirit, make us fully alive 
as the people You have created us to be. 
Because Christ has assumed our humanness, 
and because He has restored our humanness, 
and because He has brought us—
in all of our humanness—
into communion with the Father,
Holy Spirit, liberate us!
Liberate our faith, 
our obedience, 
our service, 
our praise.
Take our different gifts, 
our experiences, 
our personalities, 
our joys, 
and even our wounds, 
and pull them all into the ministry of Christ.

Teach us that there are no spectators in Your kingdom. 
Holy Spirit, you have joined each of us to Christ, 
and therefore we each have a real and an active place 
within the ministry of His Body. 
Show each of us the portion we have been liberated to bring.

And as we bring it, 
teach us the way of Jesus.

Show us the form and shape our gifts are to have 
when they are conformed to Jesus Christ?

Let our service take the shape of love.
Let our words be spoken in love.
Let our gifts be exercised in love.
Let our work be done in love.
Let us notice what is good and help it flourish.
Let us see what is broken and alienated and disordered 
and move toward it 
with compassion and hope.

Let us become a communion of love, 
not because we generate such a fellowship 
from all our social resources, 
but because we simply participate in Christ—
we simply join His own, active ministry in love. 

Receive now our worship, 
and prepare us to offer our ordinary human lives 
all to You again—
our homes, 
our work, 
our schools,
our relationships, 
and all that awaits us this week.

Father, we belong to You; 
You have adopted us.
We have a place in Your story;
You have given us a vocation.
We don’t walk it alone;
we are in communion with You.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord,
Amen.

Go deeper.

Feel free to share this.

A call to worship for the small assembly of Christians who gathered at Pathway Church in Beaverdam, Michigan, on September 20, 2026.

Brought home.

Len Netti — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 19:53:16 GMT

In Christ, the Father has received us as His children.

This call to worship1 is about coming home to the Father. Jesus did more than tell us what God is like. He did more than show us the way. Astonishingly, in His own person, as fully God with the Father and fully human with us, He brought God to humanity, and He carried humanity home into the Father’s embrace.

The face of Jesus Christ, therefore, is the place where all of our distorted images of God are judged and healed. It is His compassion that reveals the Father’s compassion. It is His welcome that unveils the welcome that has always existed in the heart of God.

That isn’t a wild theological metaphor. It is reality. Through the Holy Spirit, the communion the Son has with the Father becomes a real communion given to us to live inside of. And in that reality, the Spirit awakens within us the Son’s own cry, “Abba, Father” (something like the innocent, loving, free exclamation a child expresses to a loving daddy). We have moved from estrangement with God into belonging. We have moved from anxious striving for His affection into the freedom of children who discover that the Father’s incomprehensible grace has completely and fully and entirely preceded us.

And then, inside this reality, worship freely erupts. We gather as believers with other believers simply because Christ has opened the way, the Spirit has drawn us near, and the Father has already made room for us in His life. And there we learn to live from the home Jesus has brought us into.

Themes

Christ’s Mediation • Access to the Father • Divine self-revelation • Homecoming • Adoption • Participation in Christ • Grace • The Father revealed in Christ • Performance • Filial belonging • Awakening • Abba, Father • Assurance in Christ • Distorted images of God • Freedom • Anxious striving • Reality • Welcomed home • Union

Because He is truly God with God and truly human with us, He holds both sides of our relationship in Himself.

Scripture reading

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John 14:6, 9
Luke 15:20
Galatians 4:4–7

This call to worship is an invitation to come home. Jesus didn’t merely come to save us from something. He came to bring us to Someone. He came to bring us home to the Father.

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John recorded that Jesus said:

I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.
No one comes to the Father except through Me.
Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father.


In the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus said:

While he was still far off,
his father saw him
and was filled with compassion;
he ran and put his arms around him 
and kissed him.


In his letter to the Galatians, Paul wrote: 

When the fullness of time had come,
God sent His Son…
so that we might receive adoption as children.
And because you are children,
God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts,
crying, ‘Abba! Father!’
So you are no longer a slave but a child.

Prayer

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Father, 
we’re here this morning 
because Jesus has brought us to You.

We’re not climbing toward You. 
We’re not manufacturing our own access. 
You have already moved toward us, 
and we already have access in Jesus Christ.

Because He is truly God with You 
and truly human with us, 
He holds both sides of our relationship in Himself. 
He brings You to us, 
and he brings us home to You.

We confess 
that we don’t always see You clearly. 
Sometimes we imagine that You’re distant, 
or reluctant, 
or disappointed with us. 
And so sometimes we live 
as if we have to earn Your welcome 
or prove we deserve to be here.

It’s easy for us 
to construct pictures of You 
from our fears, 
from our experiences of authority, 
from our earthly fathers, 
from our failures, 
from our own guilty consciences. 

Turn our eyes from whatever that is, 
and turn them again to Jesus, 
Who is Your full, complete, and perfect self-revelation.

He belongs eternally 
to Your very being and life.
In His compassion, 
we see Your compassion.
In His mercy, 
we see Your mercy.
In His welcome, 
we see Your welcome.

Thank You, Father, 
that Jesus not only came to forgive our sins 
but also to bring us home to You.

Thank You for the fact that 
we don’t come to You as strangers.
We don’t come as servants 
hoping to earn a place in Your house.
In Christ, You have received us 
as Your children.

By Your Holy Spirit, 
awaken that truth within us this morning.

And teach our hearts to cry, 
“Abba, Father.”

And those of us who are tired, 
give us rest.
For those who are ashamed, 
let there be grace.
For those who feel far away, 
give us the assurance 
that You have already come near to us — 
that You are already near to us — 
in Jesus Christ.

And move our feelings 
into correspondence 
with that reality.

Free us from all our anxious striving. 
Free us from the idea 
that so much depends on us. 
Free us from the fear 
that we must somehow make ourselves worthy of Your love.

We are here because You have called us.
We are here because Christ has opened the way.
We are here because Your Spirit draws us into Your life and Your love. 

So receive our worship today—
not as a payment, 
not as a performance, 
but as the grateful response of children 
who have been welcomed home.

Father, 
through Your Son 
and in Your Spirit, 
we worship You.

Amen.

Go ahead and share this. Why not?

A call to worship for the small assembly of Christians who gathered at Pathway Church in Beaverdam, Michigan, on August 30, 2026.

The life we’re in.

Len Netti — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:09:19 GMT

Give us presence in another person’s life—not ‘the lost,’ ‘the difficult,’ ‘the needy,’ but an actual person who has a name.

This call to worship1 calls us into the reality we’re actually living in—namely, that the Triune God has lovingly run to us in Jesus Christ, that He has taken our very humanity into His own life, that He has beautifully and graciously reconciled us to the Father, and now, through the Holy Spirit, He is drawing us into living participation in the reconciliation Christ has already fully accomplished for us—a participation that unfolds in our worship, our relationships, and our life in the world. We now get to spend our lives learning how to inhabit this incredible reality.

Grace originated in the heart of the Father, became flesh in Jesus Christ, is being made truly present to us by the Spirit, is gathering our response—whatever it might be—into Christ’s own worship of the Father, and is now taking visible form through the church community we find ourselves in, through such things as reconciliation, mercy, and love toward the world.

Our worship and our ministry, then, aren’t really separable things. They belong together in one single movement: our participation in the life and ministry of the risen Jesus. Worship is our participation in Christ’s movement toward the Father; ministry is our participation in Christ’s movement toward the world.

When we gather as a church, our hands are open; that’s the posture of receptive participation. We don’t need to establish the conditions of our acceptance. We don’t need to manufacture communion with God. We don’t need to complete something God purposely left unfinished and is waiting on us to do. Our hands are open because God’s reconciling action has already, completely, and fully happened. It preceded us. And it’s finished. And it’s real. In the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, God acted decisively from His own side—and also decisively from our side within the humanity of Christ—to bring us into communion with Himself.

God took decisive action; therefore, we are free to simply receive. And our open hands are a visible sign of that freedom. Such inexhaustible and unbridled grace doesn’t make our human response unnecessary. It liberates us so that we can respond without anxiety, self-justification, or religious performance, and so that our response can finally and simply be free and grateful participation.

We don’t approach God as though doing so depends on what we bring or produce or on how we perform. Holding our hands open is the only appropriate posture in the presence of His grace. There is no other thing that we can do or add. We can only simply receive what has already been given. And, so, we just live in what has already been accomplished. And we participate in the communion Christ has already and fully established for us.

Because God has already acted decisively for us in Jesus Christ, our human situation—our entire reality before God—has been fundamentally altered; the deepest truth about our human existence is now disclosed in Christ. We are received by Him. We are reconciled to Him. We are brought home in Him.

And if that truth were to truly sink in, it would take a very visible shape and form in our lives: our living obediently would just be gratitude, the church we attend would become a laboratory of grace, our neighbors would be persons whose names we know and whose wounds would matter to us, our daily lives would be places where the reconciling love of God would be unmistakably seen and touched by others.

Be awakened to what is actually true in Christ. Be alive to the Spirit’s presence in your life. Be turned toward the Father in worship. And with eyes to see what Jesus is already doing in the world He loves and in the circumstances around you, join in.

Themes

Divine initiative • Reconciliation in Christ • Incarnation • Finished work of Christ • The vicarious humanity of Christ • Gratitude • Communion with God • Ministry of reconciliation • Participation • Embodied grace • Worship • Mission

He hasn’t given us ministry as an upgrade option.

Scripture reading

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Psalm 67:1–2
2 Corinthians 5:18–20
John 20:21

Let’s remember what is already and actually true: God has moved toward us in Jesus Christ, and He has drawn us into His life. Grace moves from God to us, back to God in worship, and outward through us toward the world.

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The psalmist tells us that the blessing of God is never meant to end with us.

May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make His face shine on us—
so that Your ways may be known on earth,
Your salvation among all nations.


The Apostle Paul explains how the reconciliation we receive in Christ becomes a ministry we are to share.

All this is from God, 
who reconciled us to Himself through Christ 
and gave us the ministry of reconciliation… 
We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, 
as though God were making His appeal through us.


And finally, John records Jesus' words about how He draws us into the same movement in which He Himself was sent.

Again Jesus said, 
‘Peace be with you! 
As the Father has sent Me, 
I am sending you.’

Prayer

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
we’re here again this morning 
with open hands,
not because there’s something in them—
like our needs 
or our sincerity.
We know that our worship isn’t what we bring. 
It is in what You, Father, 
have already given to us in Christ.

Everything begins with You.
Your grace flows in an irreversible direction. 
There is no scheme where You provide a part
and then wait for us to supply some remainder.

Before we loved You,
You loved us.
Before we sought You,
You came looking for us.
Before we could offer You anything, 
You gave Yourself to us in Jesus Christ.

Your grace isn’t generic divine generosity toward us.
It isn’t a package of spiritual commodities—
like pardon, peace, heaven, purpose. 
Your grace is very specific;
Your grace is very particular:
You gave Yourself 
to us 
in Jesus Christ. 

So this morning, 
we receive again Your grace, 
Your mercy, 
Your peace, 
Your love.
Not because they expired yesterday 
and we need more.
But because we need to be reminded 
of the truth—
of the objective reality— 
of what You have accomplished in Christ—
that is: our reconciliation with You!
The reality 
that Your Son 
assumed our humanity, 
our flesh and blood, 
our human nature;
that His obedient life, 
and death, 
and resurrection, 
and ascension 
were for us 
and in our place; 
that He brought us back 
into right relation with You.

Holy Spirit, 
enable us again 
to know that truth, 
to inhabit it, 
and to enjoy it, 
and to live from it.

Turn whatever we think obedience is 
into a liberated overflow of gratitude and praise. 
Keep us from our anxious attempts 
to complete Christ’s work.

Father, receive our worship.
Jesus, gather our imperfect prayers 
into Your perfect prayer.
Holy Spirit, turn our attention again 
toward the goodness 
and the faithfulness of God.

And Lord, 
do not allow Your blessing 
to stop with us.

You have reconciled us 
so that we might become people of reconciliation.
You have comforted us 
so that we might comfort others.
You have shown us mercy 
so that we might become merciful.
You have welcomed us 
so that, through us, 
the lonely, 
and the wounded, 
and the forgotten, 
and the burdened 
might encounter Your welcome.

You haven’t given us ministry as an upgrade option. 
Because we are in Christ, 
we find ourselves facing in the same direction He is—
toward You, Father, in worship 
and toward the world in reconciling love.

So we ask 
that You move us beyond our own private religious experiences.
Open our eyes to those around us.
Give us presence in another person’s life—
not “the lost,” “the difficult,” “the needy”, 
but an actual person who has a name, 
whom Jesus knows and loves, 
who is lonely, suffering, alienated.  

Teach us to speak about Your love, 
and to make that love visible.

Give reconciliation a visible form here in this church. 
Turn this place into a laboratory of grace 
where reconciliation is bodily, 
and relational, 
and observable

Make it obvious 
that we are people 
who have received Your grace, 
who return Your praise,
who reflect Your love.

As we worship now, 
prepare us to be sent again into the world—
where we join the risen Jesus 
who is already at work 
among the people He loves.

In the name of Jesus Christ,
through the Holy Spirit,
to the glory of the Father.
Amen.

Share this call to worship with a friend.

A call to worship given to the small assembly of Christians that gathered in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on Sunday, September 13, 2026

Caught up in Christ.

Len Netti — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:22:05 GMT

Keep us from making Him into some projection of our own thinking. Enable us to receive Him as He gives Himself to be known.

This call to worship1 invites us to see what is unbelievably true, real, and alive about the church. The church—made visible when we gather on Sunday—is our participation in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. It’s not just a place that offers religious programming to meet our spiritual needs, whatever we think they are. It is our participation in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ!

It is the Spirit who enables us to even see the risen Son. And then when we do, the Spirit brings us into a communion that Christ has already put in place. And in that communion, He teaches us that our lives have been linked with His and therefore with one another.

And then, from that shared life, our ministry emerges as participation. Christ is the true Minister of His church. He’s the one who is alive and well and ministering to us, and by the Spirit He draws each person into His own ongoing work of love, prayer, service, witness, and reconciliation.

This is the Spirit’s astonishing work among us: He enables our seeing, creates our participation, joins us in communion, awakens our ministry, and gathers even our worship into the Son’s living response to the Father.

Even our acts of worship are part of this same reality—this same expression of grace. How so? The Spirit takes our imperfect response in worship and joins it to the perfect human response Christ is already making to the Father.

Here’s how it works: The Father calls, the Son comes and carries out His ministry, and the Holy Spirit brings us into the communion of the Father and the Son and makes our participation in that communion real among us. And from within that shared life, the church becomes a people whose common life bears living witness to Christ’s presence for the sake of the world.

Themes

Communion • Spirit’s illumination • Christ the True Minister • Life in Christ • One body • Church • Body of Christ • Gifts • Serve one another • Through Christ • Isolation • Participation • Formation • Ministry

We haven’t come for a heightened emotional experience. We just want Jesus to become more clear.

Scripture reading

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John 16:13–15
1 Corinthians 12:12–13
Ephesians 4:11–12
1 Peter 2:9

This call to worship is about how the Holy Spirit helps us participate in Jesus’ ministry.

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John records that Jesus told His disciples:

When the Spirit of truth comes, 
He will guide you into all the truth… 
He will glorify Me, 
for He will take what is Mine 
and declare it to you. 
All that the Father has is Mine… 
the Spirit will take what is Mine 
and declare it to you.


Paul wrote:

For just as the body is one 
and has many members, 
and all the members of the body, 
though many, 
are one body, 
so it is with Christ. 
For in the one Spirit 
we were all baptized 
into one body.

The gifts He gave 
were that some would be apostles, 
some prophets, 
some evangelists, 
some pastors and teachers, 
to equip the saints 
for the work of ministry, 
for building up the body of Christ.


And Peter wrote: 

You are a chosen race, 
a royal priesthood, 
a holy nation, 
God’s own people, 
in order that you may proclaim 
the mighty acts 
of Him who called you out of darkness 
into His marvelous light.

Prayer

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
we’re here again this morning 
because You have called us together, here.

We’re not a collection 
of similarly religious individuals 
who happen to occupy the same room. 
Our very being as a church 
comes from beyond ourselves. 
It comes from You. 

Jesus, You are our center. 
Holy Spirit, You have formed us 
into a communion around Him. 
You have drawn us otherwise isolated individuals 
into the Body of Christ. 

Holy Spirit, open our eyes to Jesus.
You are the light 
who helps us see Him clearly.
You illuminate the face of Jesus Christ. 
You help us to know that He is truly with us.

So, then, 
turn our attention away from ourselves 
and toward the One 
who is our life, 
and our hope, 
and our Lord.

We haven’t come for a heightened emotional experience. 
We just want Jesus to become more clear. 
We want to be nearer to Him.
We want to trust Him more deeply.

Give us ears to hear His voice this morning.

Keep us from making Him 
into some projection of our own thinking. 
Holy Spirit, 
enable us to receive Him 
as He gives Himself to be known.

And draw us toward one another.
Free us from isolation—
that isolation that tells us 
we can follow Jesus alone.
Keep us from thinking that this time together 
is an optional social supplement 
to our otherwise personal, real relationship with Jesus. 

Teach us again that we belong to one body, 
that we need one another, 
that every person You have gathered here 
is precious to us 
and necessary for us. 

This communion we enjoy, Father,
isn’t manufactured by us. 
It is received from You. 
Christ has joined us to Himself, 
and in joining us to Himself 
has joined us to one another.

Lord Jesus, 
You are the Head of this church. 
You are the true Minister here among us.
Help us to see 
that ministry here doesn’t belong 
to just a few people.

And keep us from thinking 
that we possess independent ministries 
which we perform for You. 
Instead, help us to participate 
in the ministry that You are doing 
as the risen and ascended Lord.

Father, keep us from wondering 
if we have a ministry. 
And enable us to discern 
where Christ, by His Spirit, 
is inviting us to participate 
in His ministry.

By Your Spirit, 
awaken the gifts You have placed within us.
Give us eyes to notice one another, 
hearts ready to serve one another, 
words that encourage one another, 
hands willing to help one another, 
and courage to respond to one another 
whenever we receive a call.

Father, receive our worship 
through Your Son 
and in the fellowship 
of the Holy Spirit,
who joins our faltering prayers, 
and imperfect praise, 
and distracted hearts 
to the perfect 
and devoted 
and faithful response 
that Jesus Christ is right now 
offering to You, Father, 

Keep us from remaining spectators,
and help us to be joyful participants 
in what You are already doing.

As we worship, 
form us into a people who see Jesus, 
who love one another, 
who gladly join His ministry 
for the sake of the world.

In the name of Jesus Christ,
Amen.

Share Solid Food with a friend. They’d share it with you if they read this first.

A call to worship given to the small assembly of Christians that gathered in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on September 6, 2026.

Making it happen isn’t on you.

Len Netti — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 19:44:39 GMT

Give us the freedom to not manufacture ministry, but to join joyfully in His.

This call to worship1 jolts us out of the illusion that we are the center of our Christian life. It is Jesus Christ who is the living center of that life.

Jesus didn’t do something in the past and then leave us to continue the work. Instead, the risen and ascended Christ keeps on being the active one. He is the true worshiper, worshiping and taking our worship into His. He is the ceaseless intercessor, interceding for us. He is the servant who ministers; He ministers to us, and then invites us to participate in His ministry to others. He is the mediator who gathers us into His own life before the Father.

Our Christian existence is not a project we undertake, but a participation by the Spirit in the ongoing life of Christ before the Father.

The idea that faithfulness rests on the sufficiency of our own faith, our own prayers, our own wisdom, our own sincerity, or our own effort is exhausting. Instead, our confidence is in the vicarious humanity of Jesus—His life lived and offered to the Father as our own life, much like His death offered as ours—it is His faithfulness that is the foundation of ours, His prayer which fulfills ours, His obedience which restores ours, His worship which brings ours, and His ministry which comes before ours.

The Incarnation, the cross, the resurrection, and the ascension are not just beliefs we hold. Rather, they are the living architecture of reality itself within which our lives have been placed. We do not manufacture communion with God, nor do we invent ministry for Him. Communion is given, in Christ. Ministry is participation, not invention. The Spirit invites us to inhabit what Christ has already made real.

The Christian life does not begin in our life offered to God. The Christian life begins in Christ’s life shared with us. Worship is the awakening to this reality, the resting in what is already alive, the participation in the life that Christ shares with us.

Themes

Participation in Christ • The living Christ • The vicarious humanity of Christ • Mediation • Intercession • Communion with the Father • Freedom from self-reliance • Christ’s faithfulness • Liberation • Beloved children • Incarnation • Participation • Christ’s Work • Ministry • Worship

We’re not here to continue His ministry because He is absent. We get to participate in His ministry because He is present and He is active.

Scripture reading

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Hebrews 7:25
John 15:4–5
Galatians 2:20
Colossians 3:1–3

What if our Christian life is not at all about what we do for Jesus, but about what the living Jesus is already doing—right here, right now—and our being invited into that?

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The writer of the book of Hebrews tells us that it is Jesus who intercedes. He is the one who is taking action on our behalf. 

He wrote:

Consequently, 
Jesus is able to save to the uttermost 
those who draw near to God through Him, 
since He lives 
to intercede 
for them.


Jesus himself tells us that we live from Him. John recorded these word of Jesus: 

Remain in Me, 
as I also remain in you. 
No branch can bear fruit by itself; 
it must remain in the vine. 
Neither can you bear fruit 
unless you remain in Me... 
Apart from Me 
you can do nothing.


Paul teaches us that it is Christ who lives in us. To the Galatians he wrote: 

I have been crucified with Christ 
and I no longer live, 
but Christ lives in me.


And to the Colossians Paul wrote that our whole life is in Christ. He wrote: 

Since, then, 
you have been raised with Christ, 
set your hearts on things above, 
where Christ is 
seated at the right hand of God... 
For you died, 
and your life is now hidden 
with Christ 
in God.

Prayer

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Father, 
we come to You this morning 
because Jesus Christ, Your Son, 
has opened the way for us to do so.

It’s not that He showed us the way. 
It’s that He is Himself the Way. 

He became human. 
He made the journey we couldn’t make for ourselves.
And He has taken us with Him 
all the way back 
into communion with You. 

He is something far greater 
than an important person in history.
He is risen. 
He is alive. 
He is present with us right now, 
and even now He lives 
to intercede for us.

His ascension didn’t mean 
that He completed all His work 
and then withdrew. 
As the risen and ascended Christ, 
He is our Mediator. 
He lives to intercede for us.

The same Jesus 
who prayed for His disciples, 
who healed the broken, 
who received and ate with sinners, 
who offered Himself to the Father, 
is the same Jesus 
who ministers to us 
right now. 

And so, Father,
we acknowledge 
we’re not here 
to continue His ministry 
because He is absent. 
We get to participate 
in His ministry 
because He is present 
and He is active.

Lord Jesus, 
we confess that we live 
as though everything depends on us—
on our strength, 
on our faithfulness, 
on our wisdom, 
on our ability to get things done
and to get them done right. 
Free us from that burden.

Your gospel, Lord Jesus, 
turns our eyes away from ourselves. 
We can let go of all the exhausting examinations:
Is my faith strong enough? 
Are my prayers sincere enough? 
Have I done enough?

You have instead 
turned our eyes toward You!
And although our responsibility isn’t diminished; 
it sure is liberated! 

We have been freed 
from the impossible job 
of making ourselves acceptable, 
so that we may now finally 
and simply respond 
as Your beloved children.

Teach us 
that our life 
is 
found 
in 
You.

You live in me!
We live in You!

This isn’t a devotional feeling.

You have bound Yourself to us in the Incarnation. 
You have taken our human nature into Your own person, 
You have healed it through Your obedient life, 
You have carried it through death, 
You have raised it in resurrection, 
and You have brought it into the Father's presence.

Whatever our existence now is, 
it cannot be understood apart from You.

Our life 
is participation 
in Your life.

So, then, 
where our faith is weak, 
help us to rest in Your faithfulness.
Where our prayers falter, 
draw us into Your prayer.
Where our love is small and pathetic, 
help us to participate in Your love.
Where we are tired of serving, 
remind us that we are not alone; 
that we are actually serving through You.

Holy Spirit, 
open our hearts 
to this life we have in Christ.
Open our eyes to see 
where Jesus is already at work. 
And give us the freedom 
to not manufacture ministry, 
but to join joyfully in His.

As we worship, 
draw us out of ourselves 
and into the life of the Son, 
who brings us to the Father.

May our songs become participation 
in the praise He is already giving.
May our prayers become participation 
in His already-intercession.
May our lives become participation 
in His love for this world.

Father, 
receive our worship 
in and through Jesus Christ, 
Your beloved Son, 
by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Share! No, really; do share.

A call to worship given to the small assembly of Christians that gathered in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on August 23, 2026.

Jesus wasn’t Plan B.

Len Netti — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 13:52:47 GMT

We weren’t created to be a workforce for a cosmic employer.

This call to worship1 is about the true beginning of the human story.

We often begin the story with ourselves—with our sin, our need, our search for purpose, our attempts to reach God—and then treat Jesus as the answer to the sin problem we created.

But the gospel begins farther back.

Before there was sin, before there was humanity, before there was creation itself, there was the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the fullness of eternal communion and love. And from within that love, God freely purposed a creation made through Christ, for Christ, and for communion with himself in Christ.

That means our failures, though real, are not the deepest truth about us. Adam doesn’t define humanity—Jesus Christ does.

We were not created to earn God’s favor, manufacture our own identity, or live as autonomous individuals. We were created to receive our life from God and participate by the Spirit in the Son’s own communion with the Father.

When we worship, we’re not exerting religious effort to climb back toward God. Worship is our joyful awakening to the God who has already come to us in Christ, who has already gathered us into his life by the Spirit, and has even taken our faltering prayers and singing and whatever response it is we’re generating into Christ’s own perfect response to the Father.

We don’t begin with what we must do for God, but with who God eternally is, what he has purposed for us in Christ, and the astonishing invitation simply to live, together, inside that reality.

Themes

Trinity • Creation • Christ’s primacy • Participation in God • Grace • Eternal divine love • Defined by Christ • Vicarious mediation • Belonging • Identity • Communion • Worship • Freedom • Isolation

Jesus is not a long footnote to our rebellion.

Scripture reading

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Genesis 1:26–27
Ephesians 1:3–5
Colossians 1:15–17

This call to worship reminds us that our story doesn’t begin with our failure or with what we need to do for God. It begins with who God has always been—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and with the love that was already turned toward us before we ever knew to turn toward him.

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In the opening chapter of Genesis we read: 

Then God said, 
“Let us make humankind in our image, 
according to our likeness.”
So God created humankind in his image;
in the image of God 
he created them.


In the New Testament, we read:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ 
with every spiritual blessing 
in the heavenly places,
just as he chose us in Christ 
before the foundation of the world
to be holy and blameless before him in love.
He destined us for adoption as his children 
through Jesus Christ,
according to the good pleasure of his will.

Christ is the image of the invisible God, 
the firstborn of all creation;
for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created.
All things have been created through him and for him.
He himself is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.

Prayer

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
before there was all of this—
before sin, 
before any of us, 
before creation—
there was 
Your life 
and Your love.

Love wasn’t something that started
when You created us. 
Your love 
is who You have eternally been. 
You, Father, 
have never been without the Son. 
And You have always loved Him. 

There wasn’t a deficiency in You
that led to creation.
You did not create us 
because You were lonely. 
All of this came into being 
when You were already 
infinitely alive, 
infinitely personal, 
and infinitely rich in communion.

It was out of Your goodness that You created us,
so that we might know You, 
so that we might belong to You, 
so that we might share 
in the life and love 
that comes from You.

We weren’t created 
to be a workforce 
for a cosmic employer. 
We didn’t come into existence 
to be defendants 
before a cosmic judge.
We were created 
for communion 
with You.  

Creation isn’t a collection of things 
You happen to have made. 
All things have been created for Him!
You willed all of this into existence 
because You freely willed, 
from before creation, 
to have us participate 
in Your very own life 
through Your Son, Jesus Christ. 

Father, thank You! 
Before we ever sought You, 
You were already turned toward us in love.
Before any of our failures or fears came into existence, 
before all the things we try to define ourselves by, 
Your purpose for us 
was already set in Jesus Christ 
before the foundation of this world was ever laid. 

Our failures are real, yes, 
but they are not ultimate. 
It isn’t our sin that tells us the deepest truth about ourselves. 
Jesus Christ does. 

Lord Jesus, 
You are not an afterthought in our story.
You’re not merely the Father’s response to Adam’s failure. 
You’re not a long footnote to our rebellion. 
You’re not Plan B. 

All of creation is, first of all, through You. 
All of creation is, first of all, for You. 
All of creation is, first of all, held together by You. 

You are not one more item 
in some large theological system. 
You are the single concrete reality 
where we learn who God truly is 
and where we learn what we are intended to be.

You are the place where God comes to us. 
And You are place where we are brought to God.
You mediate God's love to us. 
And You mediate our perfect responsive human love back to the Father.

Holy Spirit, 
open our hearts this morning.

Free us from all the anxious beliefs we have 
that tell us that some part of all this is up to us; 
that we must earn our place with God.

Free us from that isolation 
that tells us we belong only to ourselves.
Help us to know that our identity isn’t from others.
Help us to know that it’s also not self-constricted.

Bring us into that participation with the Father 
that we have been made for—
that real communion with the Father 
through the Son.
And then brings us closer toward each other.

We’ve not here as spectators. 
We’ve not here as consumers. 
We’ve not here to run “church”.
We’ve come this morning 
because You have called us together as Your people.

We know, this morning, that our worship is received
because it is taken by Jesus Christ and offered through Him. 
Turn our attention away from ourselves 
and toward the God who loved us 
before we ever knew how to love in return.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
we belong to You.
And with joy and thanksgiving, 
we worship You.
Amen.

Imagine how this just might encourage somebody else.

A call to worship given to the small assembly of Christians that gathered in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on August 16, 2026.

His faithfulness goes deeper.

Len Netti — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 20:00:22 GMT

We have been united to Christ. We have been incorporated into His body.

This call to worship1 is about God’s incredible faithfulness and all the freedom that is ours because of that reality.

Our hope isn’t in our own strength, or our own goodness, or our spiritual performance, our resources, or even the quality of our faith and worship. It’s in the truth that God has already acted on our behalf in Jesus Christ: the Father has made us His own, the Son has stepped into and taken on our humanity and, by doing so, has provided from our side the faithful and perfect and beautiful response to the Father that we could not provide for ourselves, and the one Holy Spirit, the Spirit or Christ, has taken up residence in us and so has gathered us into Christ and into one another.

Our failures, unfinished lives, and unimpressive circumstances don’t get to have the final word about who we are, about what is true, about where we’re headed. We are a people held together by a faithfulness that is way deeper than anything we could ever manufacture.

And so when we worship, it’s us getting to participate in His own grace that has already gone way out ahead of us.

Themes

God’s Faithfulness • Salvation in Christ • Grace • Human insufficiency • Belonging to Christ • Communal belonging • God’s redemptive work • Hope • Brokenness • The body of Christ • Communion • Christ’s headship • Unfinished lives • Divine purpose

The worst of our stories will not defeat God’s purposes.

Scripture reading

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Genesis 49:18
Psalm 100:3
Colossians 1:17–18

In Genesis 49, Jacob blesses his sons. He speaks of strength and preeminence and power. He speaks of rule and economy and labor and fruitfulness. He speaks of battles and futures and blessings. Then Jacob turns away from all of his sons and says:

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I wait for Your salvation, O Lord.


In the end, it seems, Jacob knew where our hope would finally rest. 

Our deepest problems aren’t solved with more precise instructions. God himself must act.

The Psalmist wrote these lyrics; 

Know that the Lord, He is God!
It is He who made us, and we are His;
we are His people; 
we are the sheep of His pasture.


Jesus enters our situation and He provides, from our side, the faithful human response to God that we fail to provide. Christ does for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

Paul wrote this to the Colossians; 

He is before all things, 
and in Him all things hold together. 
And He is the head of the body, the church. 
He is the beginning, 
the firstborn from the dead, 
that in everything 
He might be preeminent.

Prayer

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Faithful God, 
our Father,
we’re here this morning as Your people.

When we call You “our Father,”
it’s not just casual language.
We get to address You as Father 
because the eternal Son 
has brought us into 
His very own relationship with You.

We know You and worship You 
in the way You, God, 
have actually given Yourself to us. 
And You have given Yourself to us
as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

You have called us together, here, this morning.
and it’s not because we’re strong. 
It’s not because we’ve lived without failure. 
It’s not because we have earned some place with You. 
We come because You are gracious and faithful—
Your faithfulness runs deeper than all our unfaithfulness.
We come 
because You 
have made us Your own 
in Jesus Christ.

Through every generation 
You have kept Your promises. 
You have worked through 
weakness, 
hardship, 
failure, 
hope, 
always leading Your people 
toward Your salvation.

The history we read in Genesis
hasn’t been a parade of saints.
Nor has it been a meaningless record of disasters.
Because of Your long and patient history 
with the likes of Israel, 
You have burned into our understanding
the meaning of things like
holiness and sin,
mercy and grace,
faithfulness, forgiveness, reconciliation,
atonement and salvation and resurrection.

Your faithfulness, Father, doesn’t mean
that our lives have 
no wilderness, 
no grief, 
no failure, 
no unanswered questions.
But it does mean that You will remain faithfully at work in us
no matter how broken our histories become.

The worst of our stories 
will not defeat Your purposes. 
They become, instead, the places 
where we learn just who You are.  

This morning, 
we join Jacob’s ancient prayer. 
And we too say:
“We wait for Your salvation, O Lord.”
because our hope, too, was never in 
Judah’s strength
or Joseph’s fruitfulness
or Levi’s priesthood, 
or any of our own sons
or tribes
or strengths
or battles
or futures.
or blessings.

We thank You 
that our salvation 
has come to us in Jesus Christ. 
He is our Shepherd.
He is our King.
He is our Savior.
He is the Head of this church.
In Him You have gathered us together as one people. 
We belong to Him, 
and because we belong to Him, 
we belong to one another.

You haven’t saved a bunch of isolated individuals 
and then left us all spiritually disconnected. 
We have been united to Christ. 
We have been incorporated into His body.
We now get to participate 
in a corporate communion 
together in Christ, 
through Your Spirit. 

None of us lives, 
believes, 
or worships 
alone. 

We don’t have an impressive building. 
We don’t have an enormous budget. 
We don’t have great numbers of people. 
But if Christ has gathered us here to Himself, 
then something holy is happening:
the Body belongs to its Head, 
and every member belongs to every other member through Him.

So quiet our hearts now. 
Turn our attention away from ourselves and toward Christ. 
Receive our songs, 
and our prayers, 
and our hearing of Your Word, 
and our fellowship with one another.

Holy Spirit, 
open our hearts again 
to the goodness of the Father 
and to the grace of the Son. 
Teach us to trust You 
where our lives are unfinished. 
Remind us that Your faithfulness 
is greater than our weakness 
and that Your purposes 
are stronger than our failures.

We are Your people.
You are our God.
And Jesus Christ is our salvation.

So with gratitude, 
hope, 
and joy, 
we worship You now: 
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Thanks for reading Solid Food! Feel free to share this post.

A call to worship given to the small assembly of Christians that gathered in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on August 9, 2026.

Not waiting for better conditions.

Len Netti — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 02:36:38 GMT

There are no circumstances, no barrenness, no failures, not even death, that can set a boundary on God’s love toward us.

This call to worship1 reminds us of God’s freedom and faithfulness. He creates community, supports His people, and carries out His purposes even when circumstances seem to work against them.

Our lives are not made secure by favorable conditions, uninterrupted comfort, or our ability to see what comes next, but by God who goes with us and who will not let fear, failure, emptiness, loss, or even death set the limits of His love. We see this faithfulness most clearly in Jesus Christ, whose power shows itself through mercy, service, and self-giving love, not through force.

The church is called not just to find comfort in God’s presence, but to be reshaped by it. Because the Father sends the Son, the Son sends the church, and the Spirit brings us into Christ’s life, we are called to become a communion that reaches out to others. Our trust, forgiveness, patience, hope, burden-bearing, hospitality, and care make visible the life of Jesus among us.

God’s presence does more than keep us safe in uncertain places. It makes us fruitful there, turning us away from self-protection and toward participation in God’s blessing of the world.

Themes

Communion • Divine faithfulness • Hope • Circumstances • Cruciform power • The way of Jesus • Blessing others • Love • Mission • Fruitfulness • Communal life • Burden-bearing

We are secured by His promises, not by our uninterrupted comforts.

Scripture reading

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Genesis 46:3–4
Genesis 47:7
Genesis 47:27

God is not limited by our circumstances. He goes with us into uncertain places, forms us there, and makes our life together a blessing to others.

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God said to Jacob:

Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, 
for I will make you into a great nation there. 
I will go down to Egypt with you.


We also read that: 

Joseph brought in his father Jacob 
and presented him before Pharaoh, 
and Jacob blessed Pharaoh.


And then we read that:

Israel settled in the land of Egypt, 
in the region of Goshen, 
and they were fruitful and multiplied greatly.

Prayer

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Faithful God,
You go with us.
You are determined 
to have communion with us!

You are with us in our familiar places
and in the places we never expected ourselves to be.
You are with us when our lives feel sure,
and when everything is uncertain.

We are thankful that our uncertainty 
has no bearing on Your purposes for us, 
or on Your presence with us.

We are secured by Your promises, 
not by our uninterrupted comforts. 

When we’re afraid, 
remind us that You are near.
When we can’t see the way ahead,
teach us to trust Your faithfulness.

You’re not limited by our circumstances.
You can bring hope in our hard seasons.
You can bring life in our barren places.
You can bring a new beginning where we see the end of things. 

There are no circumstances, 
no barrenness, 
no failures, 
not even death
that can set a boundary 
on Your love 
toward us. 

Lord Jesus,
You came to us in humility.
You didn’t save us through power or force,
but through mercy, 
and service,
and self-giving love.

Teach us to follow that way—
the way of Jesus.

Make us a people who bless others.
Help us welcome people here, 
particularly the lonely.
Help us to encourage the weary,
to care for those who are hurting,
and to share what You have given us.

Keep this church from living only for ourselves.
Make this place a blessing to others.
All Your self-giving has been toward the world that You love, 
so enable our lives to also move outward. 

You have sent your Son; 
and the Son has sent us; 
and Your Spirit enables us to participate 
in what it is You are doing. 

So Holy Spirit—Spirit of Christ—
make us fruitful in love.
We are thankful that none of us are isolated spiritual individuals. 
We are a communion 
whose life reflects Christ.

It is sin that disorders this communion. 
So where there is fear, grow our trust.
Where there is hurt, grow our forgiveness.
Where there is division, grow our patience.
Where there is discouragement, grow our hope.t 

Teach us to carry one another’s burdens,
to rejoice with those who rejoice,
and to weep with those who weep.

As we worship today,
turn our hearts toward Jesus.
Open our ears to hear Your Word.
Open our voices to praise You.
Open our lives to serve one another.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
receive our worship
and make us a blessing.
Amen.

Go ahead. Take a moment and share this prayer with somebody special.

A call to worship given to the small assembly of Christians that gathered in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on August 2, 2026.

We’re not meant to keep it together.

Len Netti — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 20:05:49 GMT

The Spirit has brought us not only into Christ’s communion with the Father, but also into His mission in the world.

This call to worship1 reminds us of God’s faithfulness in Jesus Christ, who holds our lives and our community together.

God’s character does not depend on whether our circumstances seem good or painful. Instead, it is clearly shown in the crucified and risen Christ, who entered the depths of our suffering and, from within death itself, brought forth resurrection life.

Christ has united us with himself and brought us into his relationship with the Father. This means the church is not a project of our own making. It is not held together by our similarities or our efforts, but by grace, which takes shape in patience, forgiveness, reconciliation, helping each other, and belonging together. The Spirit binds us to Christ’s mission as well, so worship is not an escape from the world. Instead, it sends us back as people who bring peace, truth, courage, and healing.

Our faith is incarnational, participatory, communal, and missional. Christ has come close, taken our humanity as his own, healed it in himself, joined us to God and to one another, and now sends us to live within the world as a shared witness to the grace that already holds all things together.

Themes

Union with Christ • Divine faithfulness • Communion with God • Shared belonging • Resurrection life • Reconciliation • Healing • Identity • Life together • Mission in the world • Restoration • Unity • Christ’s nearness • Freedom from performance • Worship • Renewal

Christ has come close to us, closer than we can come to ourselves.

Scripture reading

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Genesis 50:20
Colossians 1:17
John 13:34

This call to worship is about the God who meets us in broken places, holds us together in Christ, and brings life where we thought the story was over. It reminds us that worship gathers us into God’s love so that we can carry that love back into the world.

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Joseph said this to his brothers: 

You intended to harm me, 
but God intended it for good, 
to accomplish the saving of many lives.


Paul wrote:

Christ is before all things, 
and in Him 
all things 
hold together.


And Jesus said,

As I have loved you, 
so you must 
love one another.

Prayer

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Faithful and loving God,
You are the Lord 
of every part of our lives.
You are present 
in our homes, 
in our work, 
in our friendships, 
and struggles, 
and hopes.

Your character isn’t determined 
when we assess our circumstances
You don’t abandon us 
when life is confusing, 
or painful, 
or unfair.
Even when we cannot see 
what You are doing,
You remain faithful,
and You bring life, 
and healing, 
and hope 
out of places of sorrow.

In fact, 
You have taken the place 
of our deepest evil 
and made the grave itself 
the beginning 
of new, resurrected life. 

Thank You 
for gathering us here this morning.
This church exists 
because You have united us to Christ 
and have drawn us
into the very same communion 
He shares with You. 

Thank You 
that we’re not here alone,
but as a church family
joined together in Jesus Christ, 
and by extension, 
joined in relationships 
of mutual love with one another.

Help us then 
to receive one another 
with patience, 
and kindness, 
and grace.
Teach us 
to carry one another’s burdens,
to forgive one another,
to encourage those of us who are exhausted,
and to be glad with those of us who are joyful.

Lord Jesus,
You are the One who holds all things together. 
All things!
So, hold us together today.
Where we’re hurting, 
bring healing.
Where there’s distance, 
bring reconciliation.
Where there’s fear, 
give us courage.
Where there’s pride, 
teach us humility.
Where there is confusion, 
give us wisdom.
Where there is loneliness, 
remind us that we belong to You 
and to one another.

All of these relational disorders 
You have healed in Christ 
and You have made them available to us 
in communion with each other.

We haven’t been held together 
by friendliness 
or common preferences, 
but by our unity in Christ, 
maintained through truth 
and grace 
and repentance 
and forgivness 
and your Spirit.

Shape us into a people 
who don’t hide from the world,
but who enter it with Your love.
Send us into our workplaces, 
our summer activities, 
our homes
as people of peace.

Your Spirit has brought us 
not only into Christ’s communion with You, 
but also into His mission in the world.
So help us to serve 
and to lead 
and to speak truth 
and to care for others without fear.

Give us the wisdom 
to see what is broken
and the courage 
to do what is right.
Use our gifts 
not for ourselves,
but for the good 
of our neighbors
and for the flourishing 
of the places 
where You have placed us.

Help us to restore damaged relationships 
and damaged systems 
so that Your love is unhindered 
and our lives can flourish

Keep us close to You, Lord.
Do not let success make us proud
or hardships make us bitter.
Remind us that our identity 
is not found in our achievements,
or our position, 
or the approval of others,
but in Your love for us in Jesus Christ.

We haven’t become Your children 
through achievement, 
or performance, 
or usefulness, 
but simply because Christ has come close to us—
closer than we can come to ourselves. 
And He has taken our humanity as His own 
and now holds us in His own faithful relationship with You.

As we worship,
turn our hearts toward You.
Open our ears to Your Word.
Fill us with Your Holy Spirit.
Renew our love for Jesus,
deepen our love for one another,
and prepare us to live faithfully 
in the world that You love.

Receive our worship,
and make our life together 
a witness to Your grace.

In the name of Jesus Christ,
Amen.

Thank you for reading. Somebody else may want to.

A call to worship given to the small assembly of Christians that gathered in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on July 26, 2026.

Bring the unedited version of you.

Len Netti — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 16:17:33 GMT

We’re not bringing some edited, religious version of ourselves; we’re bringing our joy and gratitude, our weariness and distractions, our hopes and our needs.

This call to worship1 is about the priority of God’s grace over our religious effort. Our worship and community don’t begin with what we generate. Not with our sincerity, our compatibility, our competence, or our spiritual intensity. It begins with the life of the Triune God shared with us in Jesus Christ.

The Father gathers us, the Son brings us into His own communion and priestly worship, and the Spirit takes up our ordinary, imperfect lives and draws them into that fellowship. We belong to one another because Christ has first made us His own.

And it is on that foundation that a church can gather honestly rather than performatively, trusting not in the strength of our faith but in the faithfulness of Jesus, who receives, carries, and perfects our worship before the Father.

Themes

Gathering • Union with Christ • Belonging to God • Community • Performance • Priestly Mediation • Worship • Participation in Christ • Communion with the Father • Grace • Christ’s faithfulness

We belong to one another because we belong to Him.

Scripture reading

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Psalm 133:1
Hebrews 10:19, 21–22
Romans 8:15–16

This call to worship is about not having to manufacture our worship or, I suppose, even somehow hold this church together. It’s God who has gathered us in Christ, and by His Spirit, He receives our whole, imperfect lives, and because we are His body, He also gives us to one another.

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King David wrote these words:

How very good and pleasant it is
when kindred live together in unity!


The writer of the Book of Hebrews preached these words:

Since we have confidence 
to enter the sanctuary 
by the blood of Jesus,
and since we have a Great Priest 
over the house of God,
let us approach 
with a true heart 
in full assurance of faith.


And the Apostle Paul wrote these words: 

You have received a Spirit of adoption.
When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’
it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit
that we are children of God.

Prayer

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
You have gathered us here.

We have been gathered.
And we have been united. 
And it’s not something that’s been manufactured 
through our compatibility 
or our shared preferences 
or our music and the arrangement of chairs. 
Our fellowship 
and our friendships 
begin in Your own communion 
of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 
and are given, then, to us 
through our union with Christ. 

This past week’s church camp 
of tents and RVs, 
campfires, shared meals,
laughing and conversations, 
inconveniences and exhaustion—
it was something more 
than just a pleasant social experience. 
In all of it, 
You’ve reminded us 
that we belong to one another
because we belong to You.
Christ has gathered us into His life 
and in so doing, 
has given us to one another.

And so we’ve not come here this morning
to make ourselves worthy
or to produce perfect worship 
or perfect open-mic offerings
with the right amount of intensity 
or sincerity 
or competence. 

We’ve come through Jesus, 
our great High Priest,
who has already opened the way to You, Father —
who brings Your life and love to us —
and who is, even right now, 
carrying our prayers and our praise to You.
He brings all of our humanness— 
all our faltering and inadequate prayers, 
and confessions, 
and thanksgiving, 
and worship—
to You.

By Your Spirit, then, 
gather up everything we bring. 
We’re not bringing some edited, religious version of ourselves;
we’re bringing our joy and gratitude,
our weariness and distractions,
our hopes and our needs. 
Gather up everything we’re bringing this morning
and draw us into the worship of Your Son. 
Draw us into the Son’s communion with You. 

Make us attentive to Your Word,
open to Your grace,
and present to one another.
Correct our assumptions about You, 
about ourselves, 
about each other.
We’ll let go of the impulse to justify ourselves. 
We want Your grace to encounter us as we are,
and give us what we truly need. 

We come with confidence,
not because our faith is strong,
but because Jesus Christ is faithful.

Amen.

Do share.

A call to worship given to the small assembly of Christians that gathered in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on July 19, 2026.

The revolution that God started.

Len Netti — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 12:03:24 GMT

Breakthrough comes from above: Absolutely nothing in ourselves could move at all in His direction.

The gospel is not our ascent toward God; it’s God’s decisive, personal descent toward us in Jesus Christ. His sovereign initiative of divine love existed way before we could seek Him, way before we could improve ourselves, way before we could become worthy of grace (not that we ever could). Before all of that, God came among us, assumed our estranged humanity, bore our sin, reconciled us through Christ’s death, and opened fellowship for us with God through Christ’s risen life.

The incarnation was God’s holy revolution. It was a radical new beginning that overturned every religious scheme of self-salvation and every fear that God’s love would have to be earned.

John’s Lamb of God, Paul’s reconciliation of enemies, and Jesus’ seeking of the lost all proclaimed the same thing: salvation originates entirely in God’s being and action. And it doesn’t leave us unchanged!

The love that comes freely from God takes hold of us, casts out fear, and draws our wills, affections, and actions into living participation in the humanity and life of Christ.

Our worship, then, doesn’t begin with our achievements or our spiritual initiative, but with our astonished response to the God who has already come, already given Himself, and already acted for us.

Themes

Divine Initiative • Incarnational love • God’s descent • Unconditional love • Reconciliation • New beginning • Human inability • Christ’s solidarity with us • Atonement • Divine interruption • Grace for the unworthy • End of self-salvation • Communion • Participation • His will • Our will

His love is an ultimate fact that knows no WHY.

Scripture reading

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John 1:29
1 John 4:16,19
Romans 5:6–10
Luke 19:9–10

This call to worship1 is telling us to stop trying to find our way to God and to rest in the good news that God has already come all the way to us in Jesus Christ. It is about a love we did not earn, could not cause, and can only receive.

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In the Gospel of John, we read this: 

John — that is John the Baptist — 
saw Jesus coming toward him 
and said, 
“Behold, the Lamb of God, 
who takes away 
the sin 
of the world!"


John, that same gospel writer, in one of his later letters, also wrote this:

We have come to know 
and to believe 
the love 
that God has for us. 
God is love, 
and whoever abides in love 
abides in God, 
and God 
abides in him. 
We love 
because He 
first 
loved us. 


In the Book of Romans, Paul the Apostle writes this about the incarnation: 

While we were still weak, 
at the right time, 
Christ died 
for the ungodly. 
For one will scarcely die for a righteous person — 
though perhaps for a good person, 
one would dare even to die — 
but God 
shows His love for us 
in that while we were still sinners, 
Christ died for us. 
If, while we were enemies, 
we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, 
much more, 
now that we are reconciled, 
shall we be saved 
by His life. 


And finally, Jesus said this to Zacchaeus: 

Today, 
salvation has come to this house. 
For the Son of Man came 
to seek 
and to save 
the lost.

Prayer

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Overwhelmingly and extravagantly loving 
God of heaven and earth, 
Your Old Testament saints, 
Your Old Testament prophets, 
they all had one expression 
on all their lips; 
and that is: 
“He is coming!” 

There was an anticipation of a coming — 
Your coming — 
that would be entirely new, 
that had never happened before, 
unlike Your presence in The Garden, 
unlike how You walked with Enoch, 
unlike Your face-to-face friendship with Abraham, 
unlike Your self-revelation to Moses, 
a complete descending 
IN PERSON 
out of Your Eternity, 
breaking into time, 
breaking into our self-alienation, 
taking on our flesh to be truly near to us, 
to live as a Man amongst men, 
to live with us, 
to talk with us, 
to bear our sins 
and take them away, 
and to restore us 
to fellowship 
with You. 

And so the last of Your prophets 
lifts up his voice and shouts, 
“He has come! 
Behold the Lamb of God.” 

And so, 
You did come. 

You came in the way of sheer, limitless love 
all the way from Your side of Eternity 
into our history. 
You invaded our history. 
You interrupted our history. 
You upset our history. 
You broke in 
and made for us a radical new beginning… 
because absolutely nothing on our side of history, 
absolutely nothing in ourselves, 
could move at all in Your direction. 

You did not wait for us to seek You. 
Nothing in us could seek You. 
Nothing in us would seek You. 
Your coming originates with You alone. 

You did not wait for us to be good. 
You did not wait for us even to try. 
Your love is not calculated 
or prompted 
or caused 
by anything in us. 
You have not loved us 
because we are of value 
or because we are worth loving 
or because we are fit for it. 

The initiative of Your love toward us 
lies totally 
and completely 
and fully 
and entirely 
and absolutely 
and only with You. 
Your love 
is not because 
of us. 

It is not responsive 
to something in us. 
If it were, 
there would be no incarnation. 
There would be no salvation. 
And You would not have had to break in. 

But we — 
we love 
because of You, 
because You first loved us — 
intensely and personally loved us, 
so much so 
that You gave all of Yourself to us in Your incarnation 
when nothing at all in us 
prompted any of it. 

And this is 
perfect love. 

And this is why 
Your perfect love 
casts out all our fear — 
fear of whether or not 
we are ever worthy enough. 

For it was when we were unworthy 
that Your love for us came free, 
and overflowing, 
and abundant, 
and luxurious — 
love such as we know Your love to be: 
absolutely unprovoked 
and entirely due to only Your sovereign initiative 
and entirely free from any obligation, 
spontaneously overflowing, 
uninhibitedly outflowing from You 
toward us 
fully 
in Your incarnation. 

Your love is an ultimate fact 
that knows no WHY. 
It is uncalculated 
and incalculable. 
It is overwhelmingly extravagant. 
It is unconditional. 

There is no answer to the question, 
“How can man come to You?” 
All other religions are crushed, 
made senseless, 
rendered valueless 
because You 
have come 
to us. 

Your love comes 
to seek sinners, 
to seek us, 
and to save us

In the name of Jesus Christ, 
whose coming was the self-bestowal of God to us, 
whose coming means that all self-centered approaches to God are set aside, 
whose coming brings us into immediate touch with God — 
into a personal relation with God — 
whose love takes hold of us 
and changes our whole world, 
and changes our whole self, 
and changes everything about how we see 
and how we live, 
whose will can become our will, 
whose affections can become our feelings, 
whose actions can become our actions, 
to whom we look 
as the Author 
and the Finisher of our faith,
Amen

Feel free to share this call to worship.

A call to worship given to the small assembly of Christians that gathered in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on December 17, 2023.

New life isn’t somewhere else.

Len Netti — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 12:08:01 GMT

We now walk according to a course You have prepared for us.

This call to worship1 proclaims that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not some isolated miracle that assures us of a future hope. It is the decisive beginning of the new creation in which we have already been gathered up, made alive, and renewed in union with the risen and ascended Lord.

Christ does not rise as a private individual but as the firstfruits, the firstborn, and the representative head of a new humanity. It is participatory. His resurrection is the objective ground and living source of ours.

We should not see salvation simply as pardon from sin, but as re-creation in Christ. It is a real transition from death to life, from the fallen course of Adamic existence to the Spirit-formed life of the age to come.

Christian obedience and holiness do not manufacture our resurrection life; they flow from it. That’s why the Apostle Paul uses language like being made alive, raised, seated, renewed, strengthened, and conformed.

Because God has bound us to Christ in the power of the Spirit, the future resurrection has already entered the present, and the church worships, suffers, and lives from a reality that has irrevocably begun in Jesus Christ.

Themes

New creation • Assurance • Made alive • Raised with Christ • Conformity to Christ • New humanity • Re-Creation • Good works • Obedience • Union with Christ • Resurrected life • Christ the firstborn

When will we be resurrected? It has already begun.

Scripture reading

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Ephesians 2:1–10
2 Corinthians 4:16
Ephesians 3:16
1 Corinthians 15:20
Colossians 1:18
Romans 8:29

As we travel about with Paul, through the Book of Acts, we keep experiencing him preaching about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It seems that in modern times, the predominant preoccupation has been to emphasize the sacrificial and atoning death of Christ, and, as such, the resurrection is often eclipsed. But Christ’s death and Christ’s resurrection are, of course, inseparable.

This call to worship invites us to see Christ’s resurrection not only as something that happened to Him, but as the beginning of the new life God has already given us in Him. Because Jesus is risen, the future has already begun, and we are being remade from the inside out.

Here are several passages about resurrection from across Paul’s letters.

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You were dead 
in the trespasses and sins 
in which you once walked, 
following the course of this world, 
following the prince of the power of the air, 
the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — 
among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, 
carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, 
and were by nature children of wrath, 
like the rest of mankind. 

But God, 
being rich in mercy, 
because of the great love with which He loved us, 
even when we were dead in our trespasses, 
made us alive together with Christ 
and raised us up with Him 
and seated us with Him 
in the heavenly places 
in Christ Jesus… 

We are His workmanship, 
created in Christ Jesus for good works, 
which God prepared beforehand, 
that we should walk in them.


We do not lose heart. 
Though our outer self is wasting away, 
our inner self 
is being renewed 
day by day.


According to the riches of His glory, 
may He grant you to be strengthened with power 
through His Spirit 
in your inner being.


Christ has been raised from the dead, 
the first fruits 
of those who have fallen asleep.


He is the beginning, 
the firstborn from the dead.


Those God foreknew 
He also predestined 
to be conformed 
to the image of his Son, 
that He might be the firstborn 
among many brothers and sisters.

Prayer

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Brilliantly wise, 
richly merciful, 
graciously kind, 
and unconditionally loving 
Father in heaven, 
in Christ’s resurrection, 
You have placed an unbreakable bond 
between Him and us.

In His resurrection, 
You have decreed 
and promised 
and guaranteed 
our resurrection. 
Because You have raised Jesus, 
You will raise us. 
And although this is true, 
it isn’t true in the sense 
that because You have raised Jesus — 
because of this isolated miracle from the past — 
we now have some evidence 
that You can also raise us 
sometime in the future. 

No. 

His resurrection 
is the beginning of all our resurrections, 
just like first fruits 
are the beginning 
of all that is harvested. 
In His resurrection, 
You have already begun fulfilling the promise 
that is our resurrection. 

When will we be resurrected? 
It has already begun. 

The age to come has already begun. 
The new creation has already dawned. 
The future has already started. 

And in this new creation, 
You have predestined us 
to be conformed 
to the image 
of Your resurrected Son. 
Just as we have borne the image of the earthly man Adam,
we now bear the image of the Heavenly Man, Jesus Christ.

This is not a future truth — 
or some future reality. 
It is true now. 
You have already made us alive together with Christ, 
and You have already raised us up with Him, 
and You have already seated us with Him. 

We were once dead 
in the trespasses and sins 
in which we once walked.
But, then, You, Father, 
who is rich in mercy, 
because of Your great love, 
made us alive, 
and brought us into union with Christ Himself 
and into union with His resurrection. 
And You have made us your workmanship. 
You have re-created us in Christ Jesus for good works, 
which You prepared beforehand, 
that we should instead walk in them.

We once walked 
according to the course of this world. 
And we now walk 
according to a course You have prepared for us. 

How has this transition happened? 

You have made us alive with Christ 
by union with Him in his resurrection. 
And you have united us with Him 
as He right now is — 
resurrected and ascended. 

This is why our lives are alive with obedience. 
This is why we are filled with dynamic holy living, 
because You have radically changed us. 
We are resurrected and alive in Christ.  

We do not despair! 
Even if our outer self is undergoing decay and is perishing, 
our inner self is marked by resurrected life 
and is being renewed 
day 
by day 
by day. 

We are in Christ. 
You have united us to Him. 
So at the core of our inner being, 
in the deepest recesses of who we are — 
our inner self — 
we will never be more resurrected than we already are. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, 
the firstborn from the dead, 
together with Whom we have been made alive, 
together with Whom we have been raised up, 
together with Whom we have been seated in the heavenly places,
Amen.

It’s great to share things.

A call to worship given to the small assembly of Christians that gathered in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on November 5, 2023.

Ordinary lives, hard weeks.

Len Netti — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 01:20:09 GMT

May our life together point others to the hope and welcome of His kingdom.

This call to worship1 reminds us that the deepest truth about our life is not how exhausted we are, our failure, our fear, or our ability to keep it all together. It’s the presence and grace of God in Jesus Christ. His grace is more real than anything unfolding in our lives.

The grace of God brings us together with other people, who, like us, are coming to understand and experience this same grace. And together, with others who need and experience His grace, He forms a real community, not some idealized one—a community of grace before the Lord who welcomes us, who meets us in our ordinary work, who embraces us with all our hidden burdens, who frees us from condemnation, and who gives mercy for whatever is the need immediately before us.

We gather together because Christ is with us. And through Him, we are brought near to the Father and then held in communion with the Father. And by the Holy Spirit, out of that communion with the Father, we are formed and then sent into truthful, faithful, neighbor-honoring life with others. And it is just such a life with others that requires His grace!

God’s grace does not remove us from creaturely life, particularly the entangled, hard, messy life we experience with others. His grace enters it, claims it, and steadily remakes it into a witness to the welcome of God’s kingdom.

Themes

Christ’s welcome • Divine presence • Grace • Joyful community • Ordinary faithfulness • Christ-shaped regard • Courageous holiness • Mercy • Steadfast love • Hope • Hardship • Compassion • Communion with God • Spirit-formed unity • Kingdom witness

We’d much prefer an escape hatch from all the hard things distracting us.

Scripture reading

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Genesis 39:2
Psalm 34:18
Romans 8:1
Hebrews 4:16

This call to worship reminds us that Jesus meets us before we’re ready, and He welcomes us with all the crap we’re carrying. We’re to bring our real lives before God and be formed together into a people of truth, mercy, courage, and hope.

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In the midst of all the trauma in Joseph’s life, we read these words:

The LORD was with Joseph.


In the midst of all the trauma in David’s life, he sang these words:

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted 
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.


Paul penned these words to the Roman Christians whose churches were traumatized by division, suffering, and persecution:

There is now no condemnation 
for those who are in Christ Jesus.


The writer of the Book of Hebrews preached these words to Christians who were tired, vulnerable, and in danger of losing heart.

Let us then approach God’s throne of grace 
with confidence, 
so that we may receive mercy 
and find grace to help us 
in our time of need.

Prayer

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Lord Jesus Christ,
You are here with us this morning.  
In fact, 
You were here before we arrived.
You haven’t asked us 
to reach some threshold of effort 
before You would be with us. 

You haven’t been waiting for us 
to welcome You here. 
You have welcomed us here.
You have gathered us as we are. 
You are with us. 

And so we’ve come with all our burdens. 

We’d much prefer an escape hatch 
from all the hard things distracting us. 
We’d prefer it 
if You could just remove 
all our difficulties. 

But here we are, 
with all the burdens we’re carrying
and all the joys, too, that we’re sharing,
and all the grace we’re needing. 

Meet us in all of these ordinary places of our lives.
Meet us at work, 
at home. 
meet us in our struggles. 
meet us in our service.

Make us faithful in all the things we’re in, 
because whatever it is You’re calling us to, 
it’s being worked out 
in our ordinary responsibilities, 
in our relationships, 
and in all the pressure we’re under. 

And in all of that,
help us to be kind 
with all our words.
Hold us steady 
in Your love.

Give us the strength 
to resist living like there’s a split 
between our “spiritual” life and our daily life. 
You’ve claimed all of who we each are;
every sphere of our creaturely existence is Yours. 

So, keep our hearts close to You.
When we’re drawn toward things that are false or harmful,
give us the courage to choose what is right.

And in all of that, 
keep us from reducing holiness 
to just some private rule-keeping.
And instead, 
give us a Christ-shaped regard for others.
Teach us to honor one another
as people made and loved by You.

Make us a people of truth.
In this little church
—really anywhere—
our image doesn’t matter more than truth does. 
So guard us from careless words and false judgments.
And give us wisdom 
to listen really well.
Give us the strength 
to protect the vulnerable.
Give us the kind of mercy 
that doesn’t turn away from what is right.

When our life gets hard 
and the way forward is really unclear,
remind us that You have not left us.
Your presence is always the deeper, truer reality of our lives—
more true, 
and more deep 
than the one we think we’re in.
Hold those of us who are hurting,
strengthen those of us who are weary,
and give each of us hope 
that Your grace is at work 
in our lives.

Father, draw us to Your Son.
Jesus, make us more like You.
Holy Spirit, unite us here in love 
and send us out in peace.
And may our lives together 
point others to the hope 
and welcome 
of Your kingdom.
Amen.

Please share. I’d really appreciate that!

A call to worship given to the small assembly of Christians that gathered in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on June 28, 2026.