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Let's start with the different parts of the liturgy. Here is a list: 

  • God Calls Us to Worship Him
  • Apostolic Greeting God greets us.
  • Call to Worship God calls us into His presence to worship Him.
  • Hymn of Praise We respond with singing.
  • Prayer of Praise We praise God in prayer.
  • Confession of Our Faith We tell God and each other what we believe.
  • Hymn of Praise We respond with singing.
  • God Cleanses Us and Hears our Prayers
  • Reading of the Law God confronts us with our sins.
  • Prayer of Confession We confess to God our sins and ask Him to forgive us.
  • Assurance of God’s Pardon God assures us that He forgives us.
  • Hymn of Confession and Assurance We respond to His forgiveness with singing.
  • Pastoral Prayer and The Lord’s Prayer  Our pastor prays for us, then we recite a prayer from the Bible together.
  • God Receives Our Tithes and Offerings
  • Collection of Tithes and Offerings We give back to God with thanks for what He’s given us.
  • Doxology We sing our thanks to Him for giving us all that He gives as we give back to Him.
  • God Teaches Us
  • Hymn of Preparation We sing in anticipation of hearing teaching from God in the sermon.
  • Old and New Testament Readings The Bible is read from both the Old and New Testaments.
  • Sermon God teaches us through the sermon.
  • God Feeds Us
  • Communion God feeds us His body and blood.
  • Communion Hymns We respond with singing.
  • God Sends Us Forth to Serve Him
  • Benediction God blesses us to go out and serve Him with the help of the Holy Spirit.
  • Gloria Patri We give glory to God; the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
  • Words of Commission God charges us with going out from worship to serve Him.

All churches have a liturgy. The word liturgy means “order of worship.” For some this means a few songs and then a sermon. For others, it’s more elaborate. But, no matter how a church worships, the liturgy is the plan or structure that guides us as we worship God.

We see the liturgy as a conversation between God and His people. We first hear from God and then respond to Him. Then He responds to us, then we respond back, and so on. The conversation finishes with a meal where God eats with us and refreshes our spirit with His body and blood in the sacrament of Communion.

So let’s walk through some of the parts of our Order of Worship.

It All Begins with God: Like with anything, it all begins with God. First God speaks - He calls us to worship Him. And so at the beginning of worship, the pastor reads from God’s Word. Then, having heard from God, we respond with praise by singing a hymn of praise to Him.

The CreedThe Creed: Then we say a “creed” in our worship service. A creed is simply a statement of beliefs. All churches have creeds. Some are written and spoken publically, like the one in our Worship Liturgy, and some are just posted in church documentation or on their website. But we all believe something and that is our “creed.”

The creeds that we use are very old creeds held by the Christian Church for hundreds of years. This is a way that we confess to God and to each other what we believe, by using the same words that God’s people have been saying for a very, very long time.

Are You Catholic?But you said “catholic!” Are you Catholic?

Some creeds use the word “catholic.” The word catholic just means “universal.” So in the Apostles’ Creed it says: “I believe in the... holy catholic church.” This just means that we believe in the importance of the Church throughout time and distance. It is not in any way related to the Roman Catholic Church. We are a Protestant Christian church and not connected in anyway to the Catholics.

Confession of Sin: We see in the Bible when people are in God’s presence they see their unworthiness to be before Him because of their sin.

In worship, we are in God’s presence and so it is appropriate to confess our sins to Him. But in 1John 1:9 it says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Therefore, the pastor reads from this or other verses the assurance of our forgiveness in Christ. Then in response, we sing a song of praise to God for forgiving us.

The Lord’s Prayer: The Lord’s Prayer is found in the Bible in Matthew 6:9-13. The disciples asked Jesus how they should pray and He answered with an example of prayer. Because of this, we like to pray this prayer, just as Jesus said and His disciples practiced.

Why are you asking for money?Collection of Tithes, Gifts, and Offerings: All that we have is from God, and the giving of our gifts in worship is one way that we honor this truth. It’s also one important way that we support the work of the church and the spread of the gospel. The practice of giving 10%, called the “tithe”, is a basic pattern for our giving, but the Bible calls us to give as generously as God has given to us.

SermonSermon - God is Speaking! We believe that the sermon is more than just a lecture. The Holy Spirit uses the sermon to reach, teach, and convict the souls of those who hear it. It is a means by which God uses to instruct His people and is authoritative in nature.

When the Word of God is faithfully preached, the Bible says, “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”

After we hear from God and His Word, we respond with a song. We let Him know in song that we have heard His Words and will obey.

God Invites Us to Eat At His Table: The first Communion was when Jesus, with His disciples, used the bread and wine during a special feast called Passover, to  represent His own body and blood. Jesus would sacrifice Himself on the cross for our sins. By eating the bread and drinking the wine in true faith, we partake of His very life and so enjoy the benefits of our true union with Him.

Communion is not a solitary activity. We do this with God and each other if we are baptized and members in a Christian church.

God Sends Us OutGod Sends Us Out: At the end of worship, God sends us back out into the world to do His work. We are given a benediction, or a blessing, to go out and do this well.

We respond to this by receiving the blessing and praising God with a song called the Gloria Patri. This doxology, or song, is sung to praise Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Then we are commissioned to go out and live obediently to the Father, in the name of Jesus, by the help of the Holy Spirit.