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Worship at Trinity
If you come to Trinity during Sunday morning worship, you will be joining with us in the most important of all human activities: the worship of the living God. It is our prayer and goal that you will find your worship experience to be engaging, challenging, and authentic, filling you with knowledge of God and the certainty of hope that we have through the Gospel of Christ. More importantly, we desire that God be glorified by the worship we offer. Each Sunday, Trinity offers two traditional worship services (8:15 am and 11:00 am) and one contemporary service (9:30 am).
Worship at Trinity is...
- God’s Idea. We believe that our creation and salvation are planned, initiated and accomplished by the triune God. Thus, we believe the gathering of a faith community to worship is an activity of God the Creator, God the Redeemer, and God the Sustainer. God calls us to worship, speaks to us in the gifts of a Son and the Scripture, and then provides the Holy Spirit to enable us to respond in faith and obedience.
- God-Centered. It is easy for worship to become centered; that is, it is overly preoccupied with our needs, our feelings, and our aspirations or even with our actions. But the primary purpose of our worship is to give glory and honor to God. We look for other ways in our community life to focus on people and to celebrate their character, gifts and accomplishments.
- Relational. We see worship as an opportunity to embody and experience relationship between God and people. As we move throughout the service, you will find it helpful to think of each part of the service as seeking or responding to relationship with the divine.
- Active. A common practice is to evaluate worship purely in terms of our impressions and feelings. Thus, for many people, worship is good only insofar as it makes them feel good. However, we believe that worship is an activity rather than a feeling. "What are we doing to honor God?" is a more important question than "How do we feel?" Moreover, worship is not entertainment or a spectator sport. We are called to engage our minds, our bodies and our voices in the Holy Drama.
Some Specific Elements of Worship
- A Four-fold Pattern. We have been handed a pattern for worship that offers us the opportunity to be in communion with the ancient church and with worshiping bodies of this generation, regardless of the specific style or content of the service. The pattern is Gathering, Proclamation and Response to the Word, Thanksgiving and Sending. Following this pattern, we worship in diverse styles, using a variety of media and being open to the presence of God through prayer, scripture, music, stories and silence.
- Singing Praise. One of the great privileges we have is to sing the praises of the One who called us out of darkness into the light. Our approach to the diversity among Christians about what to sing and how to sing is to offer variety. We find a rich expression among Psalms (worship songs contained in Scripture) and the hymns of the historic Christian Church. We also sing our praises in songs composed in the twenty-first century that give expression to the realities of our human condition today.
- Prayer. We believe in the value of corporate and individual prayer, confession, thanksgiving and intercessory prayer (offered on behalf of others).
- The Ministry of the Word. The reading and preaching of the Word of God is an essential part of Worship. Scripture can appear in a number of places in the service—call to worship, unison prayer, pastoral prayer, songs and anthems, litanies and responsive readings, for example. Also Scripture is read before a sermon. The sermon seeks to unpack and apply the Biblical text in ways that are relevant to our daily lives
- The Lord's Supper. Also called Holy Communion or the Great Thanksgiving, we gather at a table set and provisioned by the Lord to celebrate with one another the mighty acts of God up to and especially the resurrection of Christ that shows that God has the last word even over forces as destructive as death. To gather at the Lord’s Table is to experience and be fed by a joyful reunion with the living Christ, who is truly present.
- The Offering. As a response to all that God has given to us and done for us, we give financial gifts in support of God’s vision for and work in the world. Funds that are received in the offering are used to support a variety of mission activities in our community, nation and around the world in addition to paying the expenses associated with being the church.
Perhaps you have other questions, comments or thoughts about worshipping God at Trinity. Our pastors would be delighted to talk with you more about the experience of worship. We pray that your desire to praise, know and follow God finds satisfaction in connecting and growing at Trinity.
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