Sunday School 10:00-10:45
Worship 11:00
Worship
Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the Lord is the great God, And the great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth; The heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His hand. (Psalm 95:1-7)
What Does Our Worship Look Like?
What do we do - Why do we do it?
The Whole Service is Worship
It is common these days for people to call the singing and musical parts of the service "Worship." Often when people talk about a church's service, they ask, "What's the worship like?" What they mean is, "What's the music like?" Here we understand that every part of the service is "worship." There is no divide between the music as a special, emotionally or spiritually elevated activity above the rest of the service. We understand that every step of the service is holy to the Lord, and, if our hearts and minds are in the right place, we will be engaging every aspect of ourselves in worship from start to finish.
Engaging the Whole Person
One thing that some people say about churches with a more "traditional" form of worship is that there's a lot of movement. Stand up - sit down. Stand up - sit down. Maybe even kneel. They all say certain things together at the same time.
What's up with that?
The reason for this is that humans are more than just "brains on a stick." We aren't souls in a "meat suit." God made us as whole persons: body, mind, and soul. When we worship, we worship with our whole selves. That's the First and Greatest Commandment: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength."
Everyone is a Participant
In worship no one should be a mere spectator. It has sadly become common for modern churches to be very performative. One or two people speak. A band or praise team sings and plays music. The congregation? Well, the congregation sits and listens. Perhaps they stand for the singing, but it has become normal in many places for the congregation to be an audience even for that, with people standing for a musical performance where they may mumble along, but mostly just listen. This should not be the case! One of the chief fruits of the Protestant Reformation was to involve the congregation in worship. At our church, everyone is a participant!
Word and Sacrament
The center and focus of all proper worship is God. As has wisely been said, "Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever." In Hosea God tells us "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" (Hos. 4:6a). We long to know the Lord! God's people need to be taught from the pulpit. Week by week, a good preacher will open the Scripture and show God's people who their Lord is. And then, having heard His Word preached, God invites us to His Table in the sacrament of Communion. We feed on Christ through His Word and through His Sacrament.
Gospel: It's All About the Gospel
Jesus said, "Come unto Me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28). This world exhausts us. Like St Paul, we have "conflicts on the outside, fears within" (II Cor. 7:5). We long for Good News. We need hope. We yearn for peace and joy. These fruits of the Spirit come to us through the Gospel. Every sermon must point us to Christ. Every Lord's Day must be focused like a laser beam on Jesus. He is our only hope. If the preacher doesn't bring you to Christ - to the Gospel - he has not done his job. If the service is not focused on the solution, then there is a problem.
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At our church, every sermon will end with the words "And that is Good News," and it will be. If we do not focus on that, our focus is off. Moralistic lectures, human-centered songs, and guilt trips have no place here. That doesn't mean we'll soft pedal the truth. But it does mean that we will always point beyond the problem to the solution we find in Christ Jesus.