Worship

When we Worship

Sunday Worship at Christ Church at 10:00 AM
In-person in church, and a Zoom option is available.

We follow CDC COVID guidelines and observe our local area COVID transmission rates. Currently masks are optional.

A Zoom presence continues every Sunday accompanying the primary worship service of the week. If you are interested in joining the online service, please send an email with your name and telephone number to the parish office (christepiscopal(at)gmail.com) by Friday at noon for the Zoom link.

How we Worship

Sunday is the Lord’s Day, and when Episcopalians principally gather for worship.  The principal weekly worship service is the Holy Eucharist, also known as the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, Divine Liturgy, Mass, or Great Offering.  Episcopalians worship liturgically, meaning that our congregations follow service forms and prays from texts that don’t change greatly from week to week during a season of the year.  This sameness from week to week gives worship a rhythm that becomes comforting and familiar to the worshipers.

For the first-time visitor, liturgy may be exhilarating or confusing.  Services may involve standing, sitting, kneeling, sung or spoken responses, and other participatory elements that may provide a challenge for the first-time visitor.  However, liturgical worship can be compared with a dance: once you learn the steps, you come to appreciate the rhythm, and it becomes satisfying to dance, again and again, as the music changes.

Father Skippy loves liturgy; please ask any questions you may have of him regarding the ways we worship–or anything else.

The Holy Eucharist

In spite of the diversity of worship styles in the Episcopal Church, Holy Eucharist always has the same components and the same shape. It consists of two main parts: the liturgy of the Word of God, and the liturgy of the Holy Communion.

The Liturgy of the Word of God

We begin by praising God through song and prayer and then listen to as many as four readings from the Bible. Usually one from the Old Testament, a Psalm, something from the Epistles, and (always) a reading from the Gospels. The psalm is usually sung or recited by the congregation.

Next, a sermon interpreting the readings appointed for the day is preached.

The congregation then recites the Nicene Creed, written in the Fourth Century and the Church’s statement of what we believe ever since.

Next, the congregation prays together for the Church, the World, and those in need. We pray for the sick, thank God for all the good things in our lives, and finally, we pray for the dead. The presider (e.g. priest, or bishop) concludes with a prayer that gathers the petitions into a communal offering of intercession.

Following the prayers of the people, the congregation formally confesses their sins before God and one another. This is a corporate statement of what we have done and what we have left undone, followed by a pronouncement of absolution from the presider.  In pronouncing absolution, the presider assures the congregation that God is always ready to forgive our sins.

The congregation then greets one another with a sign of peace.

The Liturgy of the Holy Communion

Next, the Offertory is performed, by which the congregation presents the gifts of bread and wine, and any other offering, most often as money, to the presider, who then places them upon the altar.

Then the presider stands at the altar, which has been set with a chalice of wine and a paten of wafers (or bread), raises their hands, and greets the congregation again, saying, “The Lord be With You.”

Now begins the Eucharistic Prayer, in which the presider tells the story of our faith, from the beginning of Creation, through the choosing of Israel to be God’s people, through our continual turning away from God, and God’s calling us to return.  Finally, the presider tells the story of the coming of Jesus Christ, and about the night before his death, on which he instituted the Eucharistic meal (Holy Communion) as a continual remembrance of him.

The presider blesses the bread and wine by invoking the Holy Spirit, and the congregation joyfully responds with the Great Amen.  Episcopalians believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

The congregation then recites the Lord’s Prayer. Finally, the presider breaks the bread and offers it to the congregation, as the gifts of God for the People of God.

The congregation then shares the consecrated bread and the wine. Sometimes the people all come forward to receive the bread and wine; sometimes they pass the elements around in other ways.  At Christ Church, we usually come to the altar rail, and receive Communion there.

All are welcome

All baptized Christians, no matter age or denomination, are welcome to receive Communion. Episcopalians invite all baptized people to receive, not because we take the Eucharist lightly, but because we take our Baptism so seriously. There is one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism; we are just the Episcopal part of the the Church Universal.

Visitors who are not baptized Christians are welcome to come forward during the Communion to receive a blessing from the presider.

Final Blessing and Dismissal

At the end of the Eucharist, the congregation prays once more in thanksgiving and then is dismissed to continue the life of service to God and to the World.