Worship Service times & locations
The gospel makes us a worshiping community of Christ’s kingdom
Worship is like every element of the Christian life -- it is by grace through faith. Worship – like all other functions of the church – is a communal activity of Christ’s kingdom people that is made possible by Christ’s gospel. Worship has a central and formative significance in the life of Christ's church. It is the great activity of the community of the kingdom.
Our primary action in worship is to receive gospel gifts from Christ. The ministries of Word and Sacrament in the Divine Service are real and effectual means of grace, by which the Spirit gives the presence and power of the crucified and risen Christ to the children of God. At Redeemer Church, when we gather on the Lord's Day, we understand that the Divine Service is about Christ serving his people:
• In the service of entrance, he calls us into his presence, in order that we might enter into the wonders of his praise and enjoy the great blessing of hearing our sins declared forgiven by his minister. He pours his waters of baptism over us, to remind us that all true life begins with him.
• In the service of the word, he speaks his words of comfort, rebuke, encouragement and hope through Holy Scripture sung, read and preached.
• In the service of the table, he nourishes us as we dine with and feast upon him at his table. After feeding us and blessing us, he sends us back out into his world.
Of course, at each point in worship, as the power of Christ’s gospel is active in us and as his Spirit is stirred within us, we do respond in faith: When Christ invites us in, we enter and confess our sins in his presence; when he absolves our sins, we praise him for his mercy. When he speaks to us through his Word, we tremble at the Lord’s threats and trust in his promises. When he sets his banqueting table before us, we eat and drink the sacred meal. And when he sends us out, we go. As we respond in faith to these gospel graces from Christ, we are given his very life, that we may further share it with one another and the world.
At Redeemer Presbyterian Church, all of our thoughts and movements as a community flow from our experience in the Divine Service. All of our service on Christ’s behalf starts here. And so, the Divine Service held each Lord’s Day morning is the central event of our communal, kingdom life.
Just as the shape of the cross is pressed upon us through our repeated encounters with the liturgy and the church calendar, our spiritual formation as a community of the kingdom will take the shape of the king’s cross. The cross is not only the ground of our salvation; it becomes the pattern for our lives. We are the people of the kingdom, the people of the cross. We worship the Lamb who was slain as his crucified followers. Therefore, at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, the gospel creates us as a worshiping community shaped by the cross, but also as a following community shaped by the cross. As Christ sends us out from worship, he bids us come and follow him, to follow him in the way of the cross: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). So the message of the cross gives shape to the other aspects of our life together that come out of our worship, even as it shapes our worship itself.
See Pen & Pulpit: A Conversation on Worship
