Corporate Worship

At Hope, we embrace the biblical teaching that all of life is to be lived-out in worship to God. Whatever our vocational calling or place in life may be, God desires that we both glorify and enjoy Him. The beginning of our daily service to God each week in His world is the joy and equipping we experience when we are gathered together as a covenant family to worship our God and Savior each Sunday. When we assemble together, we celebrate the work that God has done through His Son Jesus Christ in removing our sin and its terrible consequences when He died upon that cruel cross so long ago. We celebrate His glorious resurrection from the dead and His exaltation at the right hand of the Father in glory. We rejoice over the pouring out of God’s Holy Spirit upon His adopted sons and daughters, and we eagerly anticipate Christ’s triumphal return in great glory.

We believe that the powerful, inspired, holy Word of God as we have it preserved for us in Scripture should be the basis for our worship content and form. As a result, the texts of the Bible form much of the readings in our service. The central feature of morning worship each Lord’s Day is expository proclamation of the Word of God. This simply means that we place a high priority on biblical preaching as a cornerstone for building-up and equipping God’s people to live day-by-day, more and more conformed to the image of Christ the Son.

The sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper also play a crucial part at Hope in the worship of God’s people. The divine ordinances serve as ‘visible words,’ illustrating the faithfulness of our covenant-making God and His redemptive purposes for those He loves. Since we are reconciled to God through our faith in Jesus Christ, we eagerly anticipate each celebration of the Lord’s Supper, for in this sacrament we are reminded of our adoption into the family of God through the shed blood of the Son, our Lamb.

Prayers, praise, and Psalms complete our Lord’s Day worship at Hope. The Bible is filled with urgent calls to prayer and gives ample proof of its power to accomplish the Lord’s will upon the earth and even in heaven. The Psalms were given by God as the songbook of the congregation of Israel for the worship of the Lord. We sometimes sing, as well as read, the Psalms. In addition, the Psalms themselves urge the people of God to sing praises to Him at all times and in various ways. Obedient to Scripture, we sing many hymns of praise, which remind us of God’s faithful work in Christ, building His Body the Church through two thousand years of recorded history.

For more information on the components of our worship, click a link below:

• The Word of God
• The Faithful Preaching of the Word
• The Sacraments
• The Ministry of Prayer
• The Use of Hymns and Psalms