What We Believe about Worship

Worship is the eternal activity of the child of God. Christian nurture and sanctification will end when we know all things in heaven. Christian witness and evangelism will end at the consummation of the age and the final judgment. Worship will never end. In fact at that time, it will become the everlasting joy and focus of the believer.

This being the case, we see worship not as simply one thing we do, but rather the thing we do – it is practice for eternity! We believe our corporate gathering together to render worship and praise to our God is the most important thing we do each week. We believe then that there is a way to worship God that pleases Him and this is our goal: to please God, the audience of One to whom all our worship is directed. Our worship then does not seek to be “seeker-oriented” but rather “God-centered.”

Our worship does not seek to be relevant so much as it seeks to be biblical. We agree with Dean Inge of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London who many years ago said, “He who marries the spirit of the age soon becomes a widower.” And to this thought Os Guinness added, “As with great art, faith [and we would add worship] that lasts is faith that answers to standards higher than today’s trends” (in Guinness’ Prophetic Untimeliness: A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance, p. 78). That being the case, we seek to use song, liturgy, sacrament, and preached Word as tools to help the people of CPC worship God in a glorifying manner.

Our music is a blending of traditional hymnody with newer music whose words carefully reflect our faith convictions. Since we see the Sacraments as a means of grace (similar in that way to prayer, preaching, and fellowship), we embrace the Lord’s Supper as a regular, vital, and sweet practice in our weekly worship.

We also believe that while children are a blessing, not all children are ready to sit through an entire worship service. While many of our covenant children do stay for the entire worship, we also offer a “children’s church” each Sunday for ages 3-8 years old.