At the beginning of the year I said I wanted to further explain the different pieces to our new vision. This week I want to share our vision to Elevate. The full vision title is Elevate: Inviting ALL to Experience God. Before our vision covered our individual pursuit for holiness. However, the leadership of the church wanted to make a statement that God is a God to be worshipped and communally. We want to do this together as a church that exists right now. However, we want our worship to God to be open to anyone and everyone. And we realize that the word, "Worship" has its own connotations that usually have mostly to do with singing. The idea behind Elevate is that we want our worship to be a gateway to experience the God we come to worship.
When we decided to be a church that invites all to experience God, we chose the Sunday morning worship service as our main system to reach our vision. We realize that the way in which we worship is specific to a particular taste or preference. We worship a cappella. We sing old hymns and newer praise songs, but they are always songs to give God glory. We "dwell in the word" which is a spiritual exercise where we read the same scripture every Sunday for a year. We read it twice through and allow pauses in between readings so that people can ponder the word. We give relevant, applicable messages that share about God and encourage our relationship with Him. We take the "Lord's Supper" or Communion every Sunday. We take a cracker that represents the body of Christ and a small cup of juice that represents the blood of Christ. This practice helps us to celebrate Christ and connect in fellowship. We take an offering. The church depends upon the generosity of its members to sustain its ministries and members need the practice of giving to remind themselves to trust in God. So in many ways we look very similar to other American churches. In some ways look different.
When we invite ALL to experience God in our worship service it means that we want to create a life-giving worship service. The life-giving service will not always reach everyone's preference level. The idea of inviting ALL is that everyone is welcome. It doesn't matter your race, gender, economic level, political leanings, theological understandings, lifestyle, or past mistakes. Like Jesus, we want to be in relationship with all kinds of people and introduce you to the Father.
If you find a home with us, we will be overjoyed and we will lead you to the other pieces of the vision. If you have already claimed UCC as your faith family and place of worship, then we expect that every person who joins us will participate by being a piece of our life-giving worship service and continually invite others to join us.
When we decided to be a church that invites all to experience God, we chose the Sunday morning worship service as our main system to reach our vision. We realize that the way in which we worship is specific to a particular taste or preference. We worship a cappella. We sing old hymns and newer praise songs, but they are always songs to give God glory. We "dwell in the word" which is a spiritual exercise where we read the same scripture every Sunday for a year. We read it twice through and allow pauses in between readings so that people can ponder the word. We give relevant, applicable messages that share about God and encourage our relationship with Him. We take the "Lord's Supper" or Communion every Sunday. We take a cracker that represents the body of Christ and a small cup of juice that represents the blood of Christ. This practice helps us to celebrate Christ and connect in fellowship. We take an offering. The church depends upon the generosity of its members to sustain its ministries and members need the practice of giving to remind themselves to trust in God. So in many ways we look very similar to other American churches. In some ways look different.
When we invite ALL to experience God in our worship service it means that we want to create a life-giving worship service. The life-giving service will not always reach everyone's preference level. The idea of inviting ALL is that everyone is welcome. It doesn't matter your race, gender, economic level, political leanings, theological understandings, lifestyle, or past mistakes. Like Jesus, we want to be in relationship with all kinds of people and introduce you to the Father.
If you find a home with us, we will be overjoyed and we will lead you to the other pieces of the vision. If you have already claimed UCC as your faith family and place of worship, then we expect that every person who joins us will participate by being a piece of our life-giving worship service and continually invite others to join us.
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