Our Worship Service

Our worship follows the pattern in which God and his people act and speak to one another. We celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper the first Sunday morning of each month, administering it to all who publicly profess faith in Christ and ordinarily are communing members in good standing of any Bible-believing, gospel-preaching church. We primarily sing out of the Trinity Hymnal. The following is a sample worship order from a Sunday morning service. The evening service is less formal, featuring a hymn sing and another message from God’s word.

Sample Order of Worship for Sunday Morning

• Salutation
• Call to Worship: Psalm 107:1-2a, 8-9, 21-22, 31-32, 43
• * Hymn 4 “All Praise to God, Who Reigns Above”
• * Prayer of Invocation
• Law of God: Psalm 1, responsively, hymnal, p.785
• Confession of Sin Psalm 53, responsively, hymnal, p.805
• Assurance of Pardon: Psalm 103:8, 10-14
• * Hymn 141 “God, in the Gospel of His Son”
• Tithes and Offerings
• * Hymn 731 The Doxology
• Prayer of Intercession and Illumination
• Sermon Text: Genesis 2:4-17
• Sermon: In the Beginning, Part 5: “From Dust To Glory”
• Prayer of Application
• * Hymn 519 “Fountain of Never-Ceasing Grace”
• * Benediction

*Indicates Congregation Standing

Children and Worship

“Let the little children come to me” (Matthew 19:14) is still our Lord’s declaration, and we welcome the presence of children throughout the Lord’s Day. There are Sunday School classes for children, as well as a class for adults. During the morning and evening worship services, we are able to provide a nursery for children up to age 4. The audio of the worship service is piped into the nursery room.

Otherwise, however, we encourage parents to keep children alongside them to worship the Lord along with the rest of the church body. Helps can be provided for children to follow along as they worship the Father in spirit and in truth with their parents. And we rejoice in the sound of infants and other young children, even when crying or making noise. We believe God himself delights in such things!

Why We Do What We Do

We see our children as part of the church today, and not just tomorrow. In the Bible, the children of believers are made a part of God’s covenant people (as in Genesis 17:1-14 and Acts 2:38-39). Just as they were circumcised under the old covenant, the sign and seal of Baptism is applied to them in the new. Having children in a worship service and training them to be worshippers of God is certainly challenging for parents, but we believe it is the pattern prescribed by Scripture and therefore an effort that will be blessed by God. We see this as a primary means through which the Christian faith is passed on down to the next generation (Psalm 78:4). This proven approach has been historically known in Reformed churches as covenantal worship.