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The first priority of the church is the worship of God. Our liturgies (or public acts of worship) are open to all people. In worship we thank God for all we have received in Jesus Christ. So the primary act of worship is called the Eucharist, which means ‘thanksgiving’. It is also known as Holy Communion, the Mass, and the Lord’s Supper.
When we gather, we offer praise through prayer and song; we confess the wrong things we’ve done and hear God’s forgiveness proclaimed in the Absolution; we hear the word of God as proclaimed in the Scriptures and the sermon; we pray for the world and the church, we offer gifts of money and food to be used in service for others; we give thanks for creation and salvation in Jesus; we receive Holy Communion and are strengthened by the body and blood of Christ; and finally, having offered ourselves again to God for his service, we are blessed and dismissed to go and live as Christ’s disciples, witnessing to others the love and light of Christ. The words of the liturgy, including the prayers and songs, are displayed by powerpoint on overhead screens. This allows the service to be easily followed without having to find page numbers in a book (which can be confusing). In our style of worship we aim to glorify God by drawing on contemporary sources as well as maintaining the tradition of the Church as it has been handed down to us from the past. We recognise that worship involves us physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. The use of music, colourful hangings and vestments, bells, candles, special gestures, and physical symbols such as bread and wine, water, oil, fire, incense, are all used on different occasions. These not only involve our senses, they become vehicles for God to communicate with us.
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