Worship

"Praise the LORD! How good to sing praises to our God! How delightful and how fitting!" -Psalm 147:2


Our Sunday worship services are the primary gatherings of FPC as we honor the Lord's Day and celebrate the gospel of Jesus Christ. Regular Lord's Day worship is vital to the life of a follower of Christ. It also provides a time and place for those exploring the claims of Christ to experience God meeting with his people through His ordinary means of grace. Our services are traditional, meaning that they are rooted in biblical and historic patterns and practices.

Singing

Each Sunday, God is honored and exalted (Psalm 22:3), and we are encouraged and built up (Eph. 5:18-22), as we sing praises to the Lord. Our church primarily sings psalms and hymns from the Trinity Hymnal.

Prayer

Theologian J. I. Packer wrote, "You sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all." Jesus connects prayer to knowing God is a father who enjoys hearing from his children and giving good gifts in return. In worship, we practice corporate, public prayer as well as individual private prayer.  

Sermons

The prophet Ezekiel had a vision in which God told him to preach to a pile of bones; after speaking, the bones came to life. His vision serves as a metaphor for what happens in sermons where the truth of the Bible is explained, illustrated and applied: we encounter the power of God and receive life. 

Offerings


"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich." --2 Corinthians 8:9


Offerings are an act of worship, faith, gratitude and dependence. Through offerings, we declare that God is worthy of our possessions. We trust that his way of generosity is better than merely looking out for self. We give thanks, recognizing that all that we have was given to us by God. We expect God to provide for us on less than we had before the offering. In those ways, the offering is one of the fullest compact expressions of what worship truly is.


Sacraments

Baptism and the Lord's Supper were instituted by the Lord Jesus Christ as the sacraments of the new covenant. Sacraments are signs and seals of the covenant of grace. As signs, the sacraments are "visible words" that represent God's work. As seals, the sacraments are means the Holy Spirit uses in the growth of the spiritual life of believers. 


In baptism, believers and their children are marked out as disciples of Jesus Christ and members of his visible church. Also, God's grace in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the new birth, and the cleansing of sin is represented through the visible means of water applied in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.


Baptism is applied to new believers, who have not been baptized previously, and to the small children of believers as a sign of God's covenant promises to be God to us and to our children (Acts 2: 39). 


In the Lord's Supper, Christ invites us to be spiritually nourished by feeding on his body and blood by faith as we partake of the bread and the cup according to His command, example, and promise.


We partake of the Lord's Supper on the last Sunday of each month.