“Let us worship God.” These are the words that are proclaimed are an invitation for us to come before God, to be in His glorious presence remembering whose we are, to listen, to offer ourselves to God wholeheartedly as individuals and as a congregation.
”But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” 1 Peter 2:9
Why are we to worship, to fall down and kneel before him?
Because the astonishing fact is that He is our God and we are His people - “God’s own people”. Worship is rooted in this relationship of God’s steadfast love for us.(Covenant).
The church is the community that is brought into being and sustained by the fact that Jesus Christ speaks. This is the good news, the message of salvation at whose center lie the ministry and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the hope of his return. Our worship is not about us, but about being in the presence of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Eugene Peterson puts it this way:
Every call to worship is a call into the Real World…. I encounter such constant and widespread lying about reality each day and meet with such skilled and systematic distortion of the truth that I’m always in danger of losing my grip on reality. The reality, of course, is that God is sovereign and Christ is savior. The reality is that prayer is my mother tongue and the eucharist my basic food. The reality is that baptism, not Myers-Briggs, defines who I am.
The ways we worship will vary, but the central matter is not the How we worship but Who.
The primary activity of the local congregation, therefore, is a rather odd sort of activity: the passive activity of hearing that then sends the Church itself speak to the world in words and deeds.
Therefore, we may say all of life is worship to God (Romans 12 :1-2; 1 Corinthians 10:31).
It is our desire and intention to help people of all ages worship God. We value the generational mix that we have in our congregation and each generation brings something to the wonderful family life. We particularly recognise that faith for our children, indeed, across the generations, matters in our congregational life. So we continue to explore ways we learn to worship God and express that together as we share the good news and share our lives as well. In this way we trust that our faith will grow and endure.
Deuteronomy 6 v1-9 teaches us that for faith to stick we need to know the faith, to live and obey the faith and pass it on, to impress it on your heart and your children. Parents are the anchor for faith in their home life. Helping them and taking time there with your children enables them to learn aspects of faith whether stories or prayer. In other words, church is not the sole place of faith nor worship.
As a church we want to teach our children to learn how to worship, to feel that they are part of the whole and not just part of the group they attend. We seek opportunities for people, including the young, to play their part in our life together as part of the ‘big family of God’.
Through our worship services we offer a variety of formats in worship whether morning or evening.
MORNING service - features a blend of hymns and praise music, featuring piano and organ accompaniment, and singing is boosted by our choir. There is provision of play bags for under 5’s while in the service and various groups to which the children will go to. All children, creche to S1, take part in the early portion of the morning worship service. Then they are excused to their creche, Jigsaw groups and Fuse. Please feel free to go along with your child if you want to help settle them in. [Our leaders have all Disclosure Scotland clearances).(See here)
EVENING service - is a celebration of contemporary worship music supported by a praise band, worship leaders and preachers. The sermon/reflection is different from the morning. There are 7 different liturgies - celebration, healing, prayer, youth-led and more.
To gather at the Table is important for us and we offer the following opportunities to gather as a congregation at the Table. In the evenings - monthly and every second month in the mornings. Children join us and at parents discretion and in line with teaching may either have their child participate or receive a blessing.
To hear more on Communion listen to this audio sermon.
However, one thing remains and that is not what we say here but that you come and share in the activity of worship.
That is when everything becomes real and we know before whom we stand in worship - our God is an awesome God and we are his people.