OUR WORSHIP

Morning Service

Our morning service is communion service of Word and Sacraments. The Pastor preach lectio continua, chapter-by-chapter, verse-by-verse, through books of the Bible.

The Call To Worship

God calls us with His Word to worship Him. A passage of Scripture, often a Psalm, is read as God summons us into His presence.

Invocation

In response to God’s call to worship, we call upon the name of God, confessing that “our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Ps. 124:8).

God’s Greeting

God announces His grace and peace to all who come to Him through Jesus Christ. As God’s appointed ambassador, the minister raises his hands as he announces God’s blessing from His Word: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 1:7).

Psalm of Praise

We respond to God’s words of welcome with a song of praise, often a versification of one of the Psalms.

Reading of God’s Law

In the Law God reveals His holiness, calling us to be holy as He is holy. By the Law we come to know our sin and misery and our need for grace.

Confession of Sin

Having heard God’s Law, we respond with a corporate prayer of confession of sin, asking God to have mercy upon us through Christ His Son.

Assurance of Forgiveness

God declares to all who confess their sins and cast themselves upon Christ, that He has fully and freely forgiven our sins through the blood and the righteousness of Christ. 

Corporate & Pastoral Prayer

Our response to God’s grace continues as we make use of one of the great benefits of the Gospel approaching the throne of God in prayer, knowing that His throne is a throne of grace for us in Christ, and that our heavenly Father is pleased to have us come. 

The Ministry of the Word and Sacraments

We listen to God speak to us by His Spirit through His Word, as that Word is read and proclaimed by the minister. The focus of that Word is always Christ and His Gospel. The preaching of the holy Gospel is “the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Having taken consideration of us in our weakness, God has also given us the sacraments (Baptism and the Lord’s Supper) as holy signs and seals for us to see, so that by our use of them He might make us understand more clearly the promise of the Gospel, and seal that promise to us. And this is God’s Gospel promise: He grants us forgiveness of sins and eternal life by grace because of Christ’s one sacrifice accomplished on the cross. Both the Word and the Sacraments are intended to focus our faith on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross as the only ground of our salvation.

Profession of the Faith

We continue our response to God’s grace by professing our faith in the Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and affirming the basics of the Christian faith by reciting a historic creed such as the Apostles Creed.

Closing Hymn / Hymn of Response

Having received the ministry of God’s Gospel in Word and Sacrament, we respond in song with thanksgiving and praise to God for the glories of His grace to us in Christ.

Offering

Everything we are, and everything we have belongs to God – we are stewards. Our natural response to God’s grace continues as we cheerfully give for the sake of the ministry and for those in need. Offering is collected throughout the Lord’s day.

Benediction

The minister raises his hands to assure us from God’s Word that God will always keep us and be gracious to us. It is a word of peace so that we might always be confident that God is favorably disposed to us – that God is not “out to get us,” but is working in everything for our salvation. With that comfort and assurance, we go into the week to bear witness to Christ and serve others.

Doxology

This is our final word to God in the worship service as we lift our voices in song to praise God for who He is and for what He has done.

We sing Gloria Patri: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen.