LaGrave Live Keeping Time | 6:00 pm (EDT) Worship Service 10-25-26 About The Service: Pastor Jonker will preach on Exodus 29: 38-46. Order of Worship: https://lagrave.org/wp-content/uploads/2026-10-25-PM-Order-of-Worship.pdf About Us: We are a traditional CRC church in the middle of Downtown Grand Rapids, MI, worshipping at 8:40am, 11:00am, and 6:00pm. (10:00am and 6:00pm during the summer months) We'd love to hear from you: Connection: https://www.lagrave.org/contact Let us pray for you: Prayer: https://www.lagrave.org/prayerrequest/ Giving: https://www.elexiogiving.com/App/Giving/lagr107178 The September special offering is for the Pregnancy Resource Center. Services include abstinence education, testing, prayer, consultation, information about pregnancy/adoption/birth control and the distribution of food/formulas/diapers/baby clothes. Listen on the go: Amazon Music: https://bit.ly/LGPodAmazonMusic Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/3tuOdwQ Google Podcast: https://bit.ly/LGPodGoogle Soundcloud: / lagravecrc https://soundcloud.com/lagravecrc Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3yXDFaT Follow us! Facebook: / lagravecrc https://www.facebook.com/lagravecrc Instagram: / lagravecrc https://www.instagram.com/lagravecrc Website: https://www.lagrave.org #LaGrave #LaGraveCRC Keeping Time: Faith, the Clock, and the Spirituality of Our Days In an evening vesper service at LaGrave Avenue Christian Reformed Church, Reverend Peter Jonker preaches on the spirituality of time, drawing on Ecclesiastes, Exodus's sacrificial calendar, and the film Black Robe to ask how clocks, calendars, and daily rituals quietly shape the soul. Bells, Psalm 141, and a Welcome to Worship Church bells ring out to open the Saturday evening vesper service at LaGrave Avenue Christian Reformed Church, and Reverend Peter Jonker reads the call to worship from two verses of Psalm 141, asking the Lord to hear his prayer as though it were rising incense and an evening sacrifice. After the congregation sings a hymn with organ and choir, Jonker greets everyone with grace, mercy, and peace from the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, welcoming both members and visitors to the fellowship. He tells the gathered church that tonight's sermon and the whole service will be built around a single idea: time. He promises that the topic, though it may sound abstract and theological, will prove as practical as anything he preaches, because every religion and every person has some working relationship with time, and that relationship quietly shapes the condition of the human soul. Ecclesiastes's Seasons and the Nicene Creed Jonker reads Ecclesiastes chapter 3, verses 1 through 15, the Bible's best-known catalog of opposites: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time for war and a time for peace. He reads the teacher's conclusion that God has made everything beautiful in its time and set eternity in the human heart, though no one can fathom what God does from beginning to end, and that whatever is has already been. After a hymn, the congregation rises to recite the Nicene Creed together, moving from the Father, Maker of heaven and earth, through the Son's incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, to the Holy Spirit and the resurrection of the dead. Jonker notes the creed spans the full arc of time, from creation to Christ's return, and jokingly tells the congregation not to speak the final printed words before leading into another hymn. A Pastoral Prayer for Political Times and Grief Jonker leads a long pastoral prayer that he says will close with a printed hymn, praying first for the nation's political times, asking God to guide the President, Congress, governor, and state representatives, and to protect the process heading into the midterms against cynicism, hatred, and contempt. He then names those whose times are ending: Randy Baker, Roger Boerma, Dave DeWinter's brother Jim, Ed and Lois's grandson Zach, and Lisa Palazzolo's late father, along with Sylvia, Harris, Bruce, Ron, Bev, George, Gloria Rodenhouse, and Dan Behmers in hospice, with Carol walking beside him. He prays for those in weakness and illness, naming Jay Loucks, Steve Palazzolo's cancer journey, and young Margo Mustert. Turning to gratitude, he thanks God for music, good food, the colors of fall against a cobalt sky, and the gift of friends, family, and neighbors, closing by thanking Jesus himself before the congregation sings. Exodus's Daily Sacrifice Opens the Sermon Jonker reads Exodus 29, verses 38 through 46, the ritual law instructing Israel to sacrifice two lambs daily at the tabernacle, one in the morning and one at twilight, along with grain and a drink offering, so that God may meet his people there and dwell among them as their God who brought them out of Egypt. The congregation answers, "Thanks be to God," and Jonker opens his sermon by naming its subject directly: the relationship between faith and time, what he calls the spirituality of time. He admits the phrase sounds abstractly theological, the kind of topic that seems to have nothing to do with ordinary life, but insists the opposite is true. Every religion, he says, has its own approach to time, and the way human beings structure their hours, days, and years quietly shapes their spirit and soul, setting up the illustration he is about to offer from an old film. Captain Clock and a Culture Obsessed With Time Jonker illustrates his point with a scene from the film "Black Robe," about Jesuit missionaries among the Algonquin and Huron along the Saint Lawrence River in the early 1600s. Native visitors to a French settlement gaze with worshipful attention at a mechanical clock they call "Captain Clock," concluding it must be the white man's god, since the settlers obey its rings for waking, working, and eating. Jonker turns the mirror on the modern West, pointing to wristwatches, phones, datebooks, and a culture of Minute Rice, instant oatmeal, and ten-minute workouts as evidence of an obsession with managing time that breeds a spirit of constant "do, do, do." He contrasts this with God's law in Exodus, which structures Israel's years through festivals, its weeks through Sabbath, and its days through the morning and evening sacrifice, forcing the people to slow down and turn toward God, much as green space makes a city livable rather than driving endlessly toward productivity. Franklin, the Examen, and Stott's Daily Rhythm Jonker contrasts three ways of ending a day. Ben Franklin, he notes, rose at five and went to bed at ten with every hour scheduled, asking each morning "What good shall I do this day?" and each evening "What good have I done this day?", a discipline that quietly makes productivity the measure of a worthwhile life. He sets this against Ignatius of Loyola's prayer of daily Examen, where the Jesuit founder simply thanked God each night and asked, "Where did I see God at work today?", and against theologian John Stott's routine of rising at five to pray the same trinitarian prayer daily before interceding for his people and kneeling again at bedtime. Jonker calls Stott's rhythm a deeply attractive way to measure time, a life lived before God's face. He closes by thanking God for every hour given and asking help to live this week before God's face, then pronounces the Lord's blessing of face and peace over the congregation as the service ends.
