The worship services are one of the most important ways we come to our Lord.  At worship service, we want to worship the Lord in a united, public way.  We welcome family, friends, neighbors, guests, and perfect strangers to our worship services.  If you’ve a visitor to our church, don’t worry if you don’t get feel right the first time around.  Just listen and hear about the wonderful plans God has for His people called in Word and Sacrament for your faith and for your eternal salvation.

Basic Outline of Worship

Opening Hymn-After a brief welcome from the pastor, we begin our worship with a hymn song.  Its words are meant to draw us away from the thoughts of our worldly lives and into a place where we can focus our thoughts and allow our gracious God to come to us in Word and Sacrament.

Greeting:  The minister offers a greeting in the name of the Triune God-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Our minds remember the miracle of baptism where the name of God was placed upon us with his promised blessing.

Confession of Sins:  We approach God in honest confession.  Here there are no excuses, no cover-ups, and no blame.  We admit the times we have failed to live as God has called us to live.  Aware of what we deserve from a holy God, we rejoice at hearing his incredible promise:  We are forgiven because of what Jesus has done for the world and we have received in faith - namely the salvation of our souls.

Prayer of the Day:  This prayer ties into the service theme, reminding us of the ancient tradition of annually recounting Jesus’ life and the history of the early church.

Scripture Readings:  One of the essential parts of Christian worship is hearing the Word of God.  Traditionally, three readings are used - an Old Testament reading, an epistle reading (taken from the letters of the New Testament), and a Gospel reading (a selection from the synoptic books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John).  The lessons are tied together in a unified theme that helps us to understand God's will for us.

Psalm of the Day:  The Psalm is sung in between the Old Testament and Epistle reading.  The Psalm of the Day can be found in the front part of the Christian Worship hymnal or the Hymnal Supplement.

Hymn of the Day:  More than any other hymn, this song is tied directly to the message of the service and sermon. The hymns we sing have deeply meaningful words and often scriptural passages that reflect the sermon to be preached.

Sermon:  An explanation of one of the Scripture readings for the day.  After an in-depth study of the lesson in its original language (Old Testament-Hebrew; New Testament-Greek), the pastor clearly and concisely lays out the message God is speaking to people using both law and gospel.  On occasion and where not obscuring God's message,  personal stories or related events are tied in to the sermon, however its focus is always upon the work of God for our salvation.

Creed:  A communal confession of faith uniting us to Christians throughout the centuries.  On communion Sundays we join in the Nicene Creed, a confession written in the 4^th century defending the true identity of Jesus Christ.  On non-communion Sundays we use the words of the Apostles’ Creed, written by Christians around 125 A.D.  This creed summarizes the teaching of the Apostles as they learned it from Jesus himself.

Offering:  Here God’s people give freely of what God has so graciously given to them, praying that their offerings might touch more people with the life-changing words of Jesus.  We consider it a pleasure to share the Word of God with them and ask that they give only when God has moved their hearts to bring forth a willing offering.

Prayer of the Church:  Here the church brings forth its concerns, wishes, requests, and special prayers.  Often we include a moment of silence where each worshipper can privately address God with those things on his/her heart.

Lord’s Prayer:  Jesus taught his disciples to pray this simple, yet powerful prayer.  We join in those well-known words in Jesus’ name.

Blessing:  The minister speaks God’s promise to his people:  The Lord will be with us and strengthen us as we live for him during the upcoming week.

Closing Hymn:  We leave our service glorifying God for the encouragement we found in his Word and in the sacraments.