Sunday Gathering
Thinking about joining us for a Sunday morning worship service? We’d love to have you! Here you can learn a little more about our gathered worship culture and liturgy, as well as the emphasis and orientation of the morning.
Culture
GCC is a young and vibrant church. We’re a family, so there’s always a buzz before and after the service...a lot like that of a fun family gathering or event. Lots of talking, laughing, and fellowship. Jeans are pretty common. We believe God looks at the heart, not the clothes, so we’re pretty relaxed. As long as you wear something, you should be o.k.
Liturgy
It can sound like a big, ancient, stuffy word, but in reality it’s very helpful. In fact, admit it or not, every church has a liturgy! It simply means the order in which a church chooses to worship.
We believe that worship is formational. Therefore, it’s important for our gathered weekly worship to have a well-thought-through order of service. For us at GCC, that means every portion of our service has a purpose. We’ve worked hard to put together a liturgy that encourages the entire community to participate. We don’t view Sunday gathered worship as a time where the people come to be entertained by those on the stage. Rather, it’s a time where we all gather to together worship Jesus. Our liturgy (through prayers, congregational response, and song) helps us do this.
Gospel in Everything
What God has done through Jesus is central to Christianity. Therefore, the gospel is central to our order of service. In our liturgy, we follow the flow of the gospel: God call’s us from His Word to repent, believe, and worship Him. We respond by kneeling to acknowledge our sin and confess our need for Jesus. We then listen to the Word preached as the Lord consecrates His people with His truth. Responding to His Word, we then worship and take communion together. Our service ends with God’s people being commissioned to go into the world carrying the good news of reconciliation in Christ.
Our prayer is that this order builds the gospel into our bones. Far from becoming tiresome or repetitious, we have found that weekly celebrating (through word and communion) the supremacy of God and His work of redemption through the death and resurrection Jesus, and the subsequent sending of us on his mission, only causes the gospel to grow more precious to us as a church family. The best truths are those we want to hear over and over again. The gospel is the best truth in the world; celebrating it every week is our joy!
Doctrine and Doxology
We love sound doctrine, we love passionate worship, and we don’t think they’re mutually exclusive. We actually think the one (doctrine) fuels and enables the other (worship!) Worship is a response to the glory of God in the face of Jesus; doctrine helps us rightly understand the person and the work of Jesus. Therefore, good, sound, solid, biblical doctrine is not the enemy of warm-hearted, passion-filled worship of Jesus...it is the necessary fuel for it! So, we like to sing songs that help our hearts see the glory of God, and most of the time those songs are directly written from passages of Scripture, or a result of meditating upon them.
Worship and Voices
We love music of all kinds...drums, piano, guitars, bass, violins...you name it. We think all instruments can and should be played to the glory of God. But we also love voices. Lots of voices, singing at the top of their lungs. Voices of the saints, young and old, lifting adoration to their Creator. We try to lead our singing in such a way that enables the Church to sing and be heard. We want the sound filling our ears to be the voices of all the saints, not just the voice of one saint blaring from a microphone :). So, we don’t have a frustrated rock-star “leading” songs that only he / she can sing along to. Rather, we have different voices leading the way for all of us to join in worship together. We love to play our instruments to the glory of God. And we love to hear the body sing. We love to lift our voices in worship and adoration...and when you come, we invite you to do the same!
Children in Worship
We love having our children with us in worship. We realize that for some, this can be difficult, and we totally understand! To help our young families in the process of bringing their children along in the faith, we provide child-care from 0-6 during the preaching-portion of our service. This enables the children to hear a Christ-centered message geared for their minds/hearts, and allows the parents to focus their attention on discipling their older children in how to be fed from a sermon.
By age 7, every child is in the service with their parents. We love having our children worship Jesus with us, and we find it the best and most efficient way to disciple and enfold them into the life and ministry of our church family. For more info on this, check out our FAQ and explanation of child care.
Orientation and Emphasis
Not to hurt anyone’s feelings, but Sunday morning just isn’t about you. Or, for that matter, is it about us! We find it very refeshing that Sunday morning is for Jesus. He is the center of attention. He is the main attraction. We come to rivit our hearts and minds and eyes on who He is. In reality, that should relieve you...now you can come knowing that you won’t be the focus of attention! So, don’t worry about what you wear or being picked out as a new-comer, because frankly, we’ll be busy looking to Jesus. Our main goal is to worship Him and be changed as we celebrate the gospel together. Having said that, we’d love to see you, and welcome you to our growing family. But be relieved...it’s not all about you!
