Our Worship

The anchor and centre of discipleship at Christ Covenant Church is our weekly Sunday worship where God nourishes us through his Word and the sacraments. Once a week, on Sunday morning, God the Father graciously gathers us together in the name of Jesus and renews his relationship with us and ministers to us through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Yes, in worship, God reaches out to us and provides us with all things necessary for life and godliness! God serves us through the means of the liturgy.

God:

  1. Calls us into His presence, and we respond with praise.
  2. Calls us to confess our sins, and we respond with thanksgiving.
  3. Calls us to be consecrated by his Word, and we respond by giving ourselves to him.
  4. Calls us to communes with him at his Table, to enjoy a fellowship meal, the Eucharist, with him, and we respond with joy.
  5. Calls us to go out into the world and serve as faithful ambassadors of His kingdom, and we respond with doxology.

Order of Worship

Call to Worship

  • So great is God’s love for us that He gives us all we need to worship Him with joyful hearts. We begin each service with a time of preparing our hearts for worship. As He calls us to Himself we sing a Song of Gathering, receive a Pastoral Greeting, and join in a Prayer of Adoration before our Loving God.

 

Confession & Absolution

  • The call to confession reminds us of the reality of our sin and our need for God’s forgiveness.
  • Confession is the time when we acknowledge the truth about ourselves before God, our heavenly Father, as individuals and as a people. We ask God to forgive us. We pray for each other that, by God’s grace and help, we might live in a way that pleases and glorifies Him.
  • Absolution:  Does God forgive us? Yes. Absolutely. As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our sin from us.
  • Having received the gift of God’s forgiveness, we rejoice with song and praise!

 

Consecration – The Word of God

  • Old Testament Reading:  The church father Augustine said, “All Scripture describes the coming of the Lord. The New Testament is hidden in the Old; the Old Testament is brought to light in the New.” The whole of Scripture tells the story of Jesus Christ!
  • Singing of Psalms:  The Psalms teach us how to sing, pray and feel emotions like Jesus.
  • Epistle Reading:  In the Epistles the Apostles reflect deeply upon the meaning and implications of Jesus Christ’s life, death, resurrection and ascension into heaven. They teach us how to live as disciples under the Lordship of Jesus.
  • Gospel Reading:  The Gospels record for us the actual historical events connected to Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. In the Gospels we encounter Jesus face to face.
  • Sermon:  In James 1:22&25 we are taught to “…be doers of the word, and not hearers only…. the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”
  • Confession of Faith: With the church of all ages, we proclaim our allegiance to the Triune God.
  • Prayer for the Church:  We open our hearts before the Lord and ask Him to work His will in this, His world.
  • Lord’s Prayer:  We pray as the Lord Jesus Christ instructed us to in Matthew 6:9-13.
  • Offertory:  Out of the abundance that God has given, we offer our gifts and ask Him to use them for the advance of His kingdom.

 

Communion – The Lord’s Supper

  • We warmly invite to the Lord’s Table all disciples of Jesus Christ who partake of the sacrament at their home church. By partaking you acknowledge you are a sinner, without hope apart from the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. You also acknowledge that you are walking with God as an active member of a congregation in which the Gospel is faithfully confessed, taught, and believed.
    For those unable to drink wine, grape juice is available in the centre of the tray.
  • In the Lord’s Supper, God the Father grants us the resurrection life of Christ Jesus. When we eat the bread and drink the wine by faith, we receive Christ and all of His benefits unto salvation.

 

Benediction & Commission

  • God sends us back into the places where we live and move and have our being so that we might serve others in the name of Jesus. We know God goes before us and is with us by the power of the Holy Spirit, as He promises to lead us every day of our lives. .