Liturgy: How We Worship

"And they devoted themselves to the breaking of bread and the prayers" (Acts 2:42)

“To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.”   

Liturgy

We believe biblical worship is a face-to-face meeting in the presence of our gracious Triune God. This means there is a two-way dialog: God graciously calls us out of the world into his holy and heavenly presence to speak to us in his Word and comfort us with his sacraments (baptism and Lord’s Supper). In response, we gratefully come together as a church family to speak to him in prayers and songs and to give ourselves to him in offerings and love for one another. This back and forth dialog is what we call a “liturgy.” Every church has a liturgy; we just tell you what it is up front. We tell you up front that it's in historic continuity with basic patterns of biblical and ancient Christian worship as expressed in The Book of Common Prayer. This “great cloud of witnesses” has passed down from generation to generation forms of prayer, creeds, and responses enabling us as a spiritual priesthood to offer up the spiritual sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving.

Preaching & Sacraments

We want you to notice that the majority of our time together in worship is taken up with the Word and Sacraments. Every morning and evening we read through a portion of the Old and New Testaments and then have a sermon text that is exposited and applied verse-by-verse. We also celebrate the Lord’s Supper every Lord’s Day morning (read here why) and celebrate baptism as necessary. The reason for this is that we believe these are the main ways the Holy Spirit promises to create and confirm our faith in Jesus Christ.

Singing & Music

You'll notice in our singing of praise of God that the Psalms of the Old Testament make up a large part. These ancient "songs of Zion" were sung for a thousand years in anticipation of the coming of the Messiah and we sing them knowing that he has come! We believe Psalm-singing is another way to fill our hearts with "the word of Christ" and balances our spirituality with praise and sorrow, celebration and confession. We also sing ancient and recent songs that are filled with "the word of Christ," giving us a sense of transcendence with what God’s people have sung for hundreds and thousands of years and giving us the ability to express ourselves through all the joys and sorrows of the Christian life in a meaningful way.

Church Calendar

We live in the most consumer culture the world has ever known. Every year the various holiday decorations and displays come out a little earlier, the advertisements for sales like “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” get more enticing and last longer. Sadly, as Christians within this culture we are not immune from this “spirit of the age.” We are products of our culture. 

Our congregation confronts this sinful spirit in our own hearts by celebrating “the Lord’s Day” (Rev. 1:10) as holy as well as utilizing a simplified and Christ-centered traditional church calendar. We celebrate Christ’s birth on Christmas Eve, his death on Good Friday, his resurrection on Easter Sunday, his Ascension, and his pouring out of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. These days are no more holy than any other, but because we can be swept up into the consumerism of the age they are helpful for us a way to “redeem the time” (Eph. 5:16; KJV), pausing and mediating on God’s greatest gift—the coming of the eternal Son of God in human flesh. Through a sanctified use of time, we celebrate our redemption, participate in it through Word and Sacrament, and teach our children the mysteries of the Faith into which they were baptized.

Explore Our Liturgy

We know that "liturgy" or our “style” of worship may be different from what you have experienced elsewhere, so we invite you to explore our liturgy. Join us in worship, contact Pastor Danny about his next “Welcome to a Reformed Church Class,” and read Pastor Danny's, What to Expect in Reformed Worship: A Visitor’s Guide (Wipf & Stock, 2007). All visitors to OURC get a free copy.