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Worship is the heartbeat of every true disciple of Christ. When one has understood the unconditional love of the Father for His adopted children, the grandeur of His person, His holiness, and the mystery of His ways is moved to pour out his heart in adoration and praise. At Friendly Hills, we hope to equip our members to worship in Spirit and in truth.

WHAT IS WORSHIP?

Worship is a God-centered assembly of people who desire to praise God and draw close to the throne of grace. Worship is an experience where in the believer enters in the presence of God, tasting of the joy unspeakable which comes to those who are adopted children of the High King. True worship happens in the context of an appreciation for grace and a respect for the holiness of God. Our passion is for His righteousness and glory.

Private and Corporate

We emphasize both private and corporate worship. “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Romans 12:1 God desires our time and our praise daily, and we realize that individual worship is the foundation for corporate worship. What happens when we are alone with the Lord determines how personally significant the worship will be when we come together. We should not forsake gathering together, for God promises to be with us in a special way when we worship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. “For where two or three come together in My name there I am with them.” Matthew 18:20.

Participatory

Worship is not something done for us or to us. It is something done by each of us, or it is not worship. If we come to worship service only for what we can get out of it, as in a weekly visit to the movie theater, we have missed the point. We come to render to Christ what He is due and what our love compels us to express.

This is not to say that we are unaffected by worship. We are truly changed when we enter into the presence of Christ. Though we come to glorify God, we come also with a sense of longing and need to be filled by Him. When we worship God, we are the ones who receive the blessing.

Meaningful

Our God is a God of order. While we strive to maintain a warm atmosphere with room for personal expression and pockets of spontaneity, we are also aware that God has given instruction in the manner of worship which He desires. We believe that we can best learn how to worship God through the Scriptures. As a help to understand what the Scriptures teach, we look to the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and our denomination’s Book of Church Order, (The Directory of Worship). Our tradition is drawn from the reformed faith, a faith rich in heritage and close to the Scriptures. Still, we do not believe that being reformed requires our church to be a freeze frame of a 15th century congregation. We are rather to be constantly reforming, presenting a relevant message to a contemporary world. For this reason we strive to maintain a contemporary feel to our worship service while respecting our heritage and history as a church.

Relevant

We believe that it is possible to conduct a worship service which is significant to both churched individuals and those yet seeking the truth. Our world is skeptical of organized religion, and awash in relativism. We hold out God’s hope, truth, and forgiveness to those despairing of life, looking for something real, and burdened by guilt. We do this in the context of our relationship with God and one another.

WHAT ARE THE ELEMENTS OF WORSHIP?

While there is a degree of freedom within the prescribed elements of worship and the form which those elements take in a local congregation, yet God is the author of worship. We must therefore look to Him and ask the question, “Lord, how do You desire that we worship?”

“God is a spirit, and thus true worship must be in spirit and in truth. All must be done to the glory of God and the edification of His people. God’s ways are mysterious to us, and the moving of His Spirit is beyond our control. Still He is a God of truth and order, and our worship must be done therefore decently and in order.”

Elements of worship seen in the apostolic church:

1. Reading the Scripture
2. Preaching of the Word (messages should be sensitive to all present including children)
3. Prayer
4. Worthy observance of the Sacraments
5. Praise and music (the singing of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with grace in the heart, appropriate use of instruments of all kinds)
6. Gathering of offerings
7. Confession of sin
8. Confessing the faith
9. Use of benediction (both pastoral and as a priesthood of believers)
10. The taking of oaths for membership, ordination, etc.
11. Testimonies of God’s grace and changed lives (missions, conversion, changed lives, deeds of mercy and justice, etc.)
12. Responsive/collective readings
    Psalms Creeds
    Proverbs Confessions
    Lord’s Prayer Catechisms
13. Drama
    (This may happen within the body of the service if it is true to the Word of God, neither adding nor subtracting. Our church makes a distinction between skits and drama. Drama is a dramatic presentation seeking to communicate a truth of scripture and is respectful of the context of worship. Skits may be used but must come before the invocation which formally begins our worship service. A skit is distinctive in that it is oriented more towards the communication of information and the entertainment of the congregation. All questionable skits and drama should be cleared through the Session.)

WHAT ARE OUR DISTINCTIVES IN WORSHIP?

1. We seek through a blended service to draw God’s people into worship as well as minister truth and goodness to the lives of seekers who may be present.

2. We strive not to be overly formal but to maintain a warm participatory atmosphere.

3. The focal point of our worship service is the preaching of the Word of God, in the context of praise and adoration.

4. Our church has been deeply touched by the Biblical truth of grace in the gospel. As we are saved by grace through faith alone in Jesus Christ, so also our sanctification is a product of God’s ongoing grace in our lives. We reject all forms of legalism and seek to demonstrate the unconditional love of a near and present Father and Brother.

5. We desire to maintain pockets of spontaneity and not be bound by regulations concerning the form of worship. We always strive to pump life into form.

6. Music is very important to our congregation. Both contemporary and traditional forms of praise are significant to the broader family of Christ. We strive to do both with excellence.

7. We strive to have a culturally relevant presentation of the Gospel. Those who preach, and those who lead in worship, strive to do so in a way that says, “This is real!”

8. We have a high view of the depth and the breadth of our faith. We realize that the church was not recreated in 1970 and that a solid biblical foundation requires churches to lock arms with those through whom God’s faithfulness has preserved the Gospel message for our generation.