VERDUGO COMMUNITY CHURCH SUNDAY WORSHIP SERVICE AUGUST 17, 2025

2025-08-19

Pastor Gail Linstrom begins our service by welcoming all to worship and to participate in the life of our church family. Dale Reynolds challenges us with a reading from Jeremiah 23. Luisa Fernandez leads us in our opening prayer. Nick Baltazar, Caroline Sandoval, and Ed Manacop lead us in joyous singing. Greg Hart takes up the praises and concerns of our church, our city, and our world in the Prayers of the People. Pastor Gail concludes our service by leading us in Communion, and you are invited to participate.

In his sermon, “Looking in a Mirror: Jesus and Emotion,” Chaplain David Saltzman uses Jesus’s words in Luke 12 to show that we should use our emotions to learn about where we are on our spiritual journey, not suppress them. Strong emotions can teach us that there are areas where we have weaknesses, particularly toward others. In this passage, Jesus showed frustration with his followers and others for not making the same effort to understand what he was teaching that they used to predict the weather. He reminded them that confronting what he taught would not be easy, with even family members disagreeing, but it was something we each have to do. Only then can we be honest with others and better show them the understanding and love of God for them.

Verdugo makes its Sunday sermons and select worship services available to you on Facebook at https://facebook.com/verdugochurch and posts audio copies of the service and sermon at https://verdugochurch.podbean.com. Please note that video copies may be deleted after 90 days under Facebook rules.

Prayers of the People have been edited to respect the privacy and confidentiality of those participating or mentioned.

All song titles, lyrics, and music are used with permission. CCLI license # 2486815.

Verdugo Community Church is a Free Methodist congregation serving the Glassell Park, Eagle Rock, and Glendale areas in Los Angeles. It is located at 4300 Verdugo Road, Los Angeles, CA 90065. Our email address is verdugofmc@gmail.com. Contact Pastor Gail at (323) 500-3343.

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