Get Loud - Our Watchword 2025-2026

This is a sermon preview for the first week of our "Get Loud" series on our goals and watchword for 2025-2026 .

Visit FBCM’s Church Center Channel to view video live stream (live) or audio version of sermon (published week after).

"In that day you will say:

“Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name;    make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted."

-from Isaiah 12

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What's in a Watchword? For the last couple of years, our congregational Watchword has been drawn from the words of Jesus in Mark 10:45 "For Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Our focus in all of our areas of our church family's life together (The 4 "Ws" Worship, the Way (Discipleship), Witness (Evangelism), and Work (Acts of Mercy), were guided by a shortened version of that verse: "Not to Be Served But to Serve."

Now we have a new watchword! But where did Watchwords came for. Watchwords began in 1722 with the Moravian renewal movement in Germany. Short passages of scripture used for guidance were chosen by casting lots, and the churches even began publishing daily texts to serve as devotions for each day. The hope was that the scriptures could be meditated upon and memorized to serve as guidance for the Christian believer. Many Moravian churches even hand out individualized watchwords at New Year's Eve services.

The Church Coordination Team spent a day of prayer on various passages and reflected on where God has been with our congregation, and where the Spirit may be leading us in the next chapter. We landed on a new Watchword for this season which would guide each of our goals.

That Watchword is drawn from Isaiah 12:4:

“Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted."

"Praise and Proclaim" is our guiding word this season.

Our first series of this academic year will explore what it means to "GET LOUD!" That is, we'll explore how we praise and proclaim the Lord who is our Salvation. This will also involve our 2nd annual "Vision Lunch" where we will all look forward to what we can celebrate about what God has done, and receive what is yet to come together as the family of God.