So, what will the worship services be like?

So, what will the worship services be like?

We will worship. We love gathering together to worship God in spirit and in truth. When we come to the Sunday morning service, we come as participants, not consumers.  We come to do something; namely, to worship God. During our time together, we endeavor to ensure that all eyes are on God. As a result, He does something in us. At the heart of our meetings is the conviction that God breathes life into his people through his word. That is why we speak of our time together as Word-saturated worship; where we read the Word, pray the Word, sing the Word, preach the Word, and see the Word through baptism and communion.

We will sing. We believe that the songs we sing together should give us a rich vocabulary for life and worship before God. Whether they come from the sixteenth century or the twenty-first, we want to sing songs that are God-exalting, Gospel-centered, Word-saturated, and theologically-rich (Colossians 3:16-17). We strongly prefer congregational singing, which emphasizes the gathered body singing praise to God with one voice. So while we enlist singers and instrumentalists to provide leadership, it is our desire that the congregation be the primary instrument of praise.

We will read and pray.  We want to hear from God and communicate back to Him. Thus, we read His Word and pray. Our normal practice is to read two passages of Scripture that support the theme of the sermon text, one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament. After each of these Scripture readings, one of our elders prays on behalf of all who are present. His prayer will align closely with the Scripture just read, will be carefully thought through, and will be sincerely offered from his heart and ours. In them, we thank God for these truths, confess our failure to obey them, and praise God for His grace to us through the sacrifice of Christ.

We will listen. We believe that God is most glorified and the body is most edified by expository preaching. By expository, we mean that the intent of the sermon is to explain the unalterable meaning of the text and press its eternal implication upon the hearts of those who hear. When the meaning of the Scripture becomes clear, its power is unleashed to transform lives. Sermons usually last from forty-five minutes to an hour and are packed with material for reflection and application. On a regular basis, our sermon series alternate between the Old and New Testaments. All preaching is driven by the Gospel, the Bible’s main message of God saving sinners through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We will respond. We sing a hymn encapsulating the theme of the sermon and then take our seats once more for a brief moment of silent reflection. This is a special time to consider what the Lord has just said to us through His Word, to thank Him for His truth, and to surrender yourself, by His grace, to obey what He has said.

We will fellowship. We provide light refreshments in the common area before and after the service to encourage fellowship. This is a wonderful time to serve others by extending yourself to them with friendship, concern, and encouragement (a great time to engage in one-anothering). After the service, we encourage members to discuss what we just heard from the Scriptures, sharing with one another how the Lord used it to challenge you.