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A New Worship Service for Grace Community Church, Part 1

As first announced this past Sunday, the elders have approved a second worship service for the 10 weeks from Easter through Memorial Day weekend.  For Easter, we will have two identical services.  Beginning April 3, the early service will be one hour long. Each time it will close with the serving of the Lord’s Supper. The final alignment of times is still under consideration, but to give you an idea, the communion service will begin somewhere in the 8 o’clock hour and last one hour.  There will be a break and then Foundations will last 45 minutes.  Then after about 20 minutes the late service will begin.

Why?  Permit me a brief story.  A few Christmases ago Caron and I were greeting people at the door on Christmas Eve when we discovered one of our single moms was going to be all alone.  Caron has a special friendship with this woman, and it didn’t take us long to figure out what we needed to do.  She joined our whole family around our table at Christmas Dinner.  We had a grand time.  God had a special blessing for us.  She works in the intelligence community and the conversation that night resulted in a new vocational direction for our son-in-law.  We made a little space and added a little to our meal portions, and we were blessed far beyond any expectation for a little kindness.

Grace Community Church has been blessed lately with new members and attenders.  A few of them have made first time professions of faith, and have been energizing to many of us.  One of our new attenders has been producing the high quality videos that precede the “Stories of Jesus” sermons.  We’ve made a little room for people, welcomed them to our church, and have been so richly blessed.

Just like Caron had to figure out how to fit one more person at the table, Grace has to figure out how to welcome the next guest to our church.  After much consideration in the past months, the wise next step seems to be a second service.

What kind of service? Some background: Grace is a bad church to be at if you’re a worship elitist.  And yes, I’m making a value judgment on the worship wars as I use that phrase.  We use the most contemporary worship music some Sundays, and even rock out a little.  We sing hymns.  We use creeds, scripture readings, and the Lord’s Prayer some Sundays.  We confess our sins as well as our faith.  We’ve had classical music in worship.  We’ve done a little bluegrass and Southern Rock on occasion.  If it has a spot-on gospel-centered lyric, it’s fair game!  If a hymn fits best, we use it.  If a song with some pace and a beat gets our minds heavenward, we use it. Having said that, it seems like it’s a good time to tap into some of our history for this earlier service.

I’m thankful to have elders who bring new ideas to the table.  Elder Jimmy Wood (who will write about this next week) sees this new service as an opportunity to tap into some longings many people have for the biblical, historic practices of worship, and the regular communion of the people of God with Christ at the Lord’s Table (variously called the Lord’s supper, Communion, and in other churches, the Eucharist).  I’ll save room for him to share some thoughts with you.  I’m excited for this opportunity for us to experience God in some fresh, if familiar ways.

February 21 and 28 after church we will have identical informational meetings about the new service.  At these meetings we will explain our thinking, take some questions, and solicit the help of those who might try the new service.  Plan to attend one of those two meetings if you are interested in either learning more or plugging in!

In Him,

Don

Don Ward

Senior Pastor

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