Worship

We believe worship is the primary reason for which we were created.  To delight in God, to praise him for his greatness and his goodness, to express our love and gratitude to him—these are activities which give meaning and purpose to our lives, as well as making our lives deeply satisfying and rewarding.  In one sense we are always worshipping God, as we seek to honor him and delight in him in everything that we do (e.g. work, rest, play, etc.)  But when we talk about the worship of the church, we normally have in mind those services in which we gather together as a community of faith for the express purpose of worship.  

Such services, we believe, essentially consist of a meeting between God and his people, who come together to worship because of their common faith in Jesus Christ.  In these meetings God “speaks” to us through the reading and preaching of his Word, the Bible, and through the visible words or signs of the sacraments, especially the Lord’s Supper.  In turn, we respond to God by listening, praying, singing, and confessing our faith together.  Not only do we believe that God delights in our worship when he meets with us in this way, but we also believe that he works in us by his Holy Spirit, as we worship, to strengthen our faith, our understanding, and our assurance of his love for us in Christ.  

We believe the actual parts of a church worship service are given to us by God in the Scriptures.  These include the reading and preaching of Scripture, the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, prayer, singing, confessing our faith, making offerings to God, and taking vows on special occasions.  But we also believe God has given us great freedom in terms of the way in which we implement these basic parts of a worship service.  In our worship we want the order of the service, the content of the prayers and songs, and the music to reflect both the past and the present.  In this way we remind ourselves that the church is something much bigger than our time and place, but also that the church is called to serve in our time and place.  Finally, we believe we should respond to God with our whole being in worship—intellectually, emotionally, and even physically (e.g. our posture).  Our desire is that our worship services would be characterized by both reverence and joy, since our God is holy, powerful, and just, but also good, loving, and merciful.

Click on the link below to see a sample bulletin for our worship services.