Sunday mornings
Our Sunday worship is a time to re-tell, re-create and re-live the central story that binds us together as followers of Christ: God's transforming love that was expressed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We want to do this in a way that is accessible to anyone who participates with us. So don't worry about dressing up, just come as you are. We'll do our best to explain everything that we do as we go along. Below are some of the values that guide our worship.
Music
Music engages the heart and mind. It is a powerful tool for expression, and one that we seek to use to the fullest in worship. But it is not a universal language. At Grace Community we seek to expand our vocabulary of worship, utilizing music from many different traditions of the Christian faith.
"Treasures new and old"
In the Bible we see the use of both the time-honored and the new and spontaneous. So we incorporate both traditional music and liturgies that ground us in the the worship of historical Church and contemporary prayers and newly-created orders for worship, expressing ourselves in our contemporary culture and with our God-given creative imagination.
Symbols
We cannot see God because He is spirit. But we are beings made up of both material spiritual aspects. So we use symbols to worship God. The most basic and ancient symbols we use are the bread and the cup of the Eucharist. But we recognize the symbolism of everything that is part of our worship space, from the way in which we arrange the seating to the art that is put on the walls.
Flow
God created us with a mind and emotions, as well as with a will. Worship should engage us in all ways, intellectual and emotional flow. Worship shouldn't be boring or meaninglessly repetitive. Worship should challenge and stimulate the mind and the heart when we come prepared to encounter and praise God.
Movement
God created us with a body, so worship should involve our bodies. The Bible shows us many ways to use our bodies in worship: standing (Nehemiah 9:2-3), kneeling (Psalm 95:6), clapping (Psalm 47:1), raising our hands (Psalm 134:2). Each of these actions recognizes a different aspect of God: his majesty, creatorship, sovereignty, power for healing, love. These movements are another part of the vocabulary of worship that we are learning and expanding together.
Community
God calls us to worship him together. The pictures of worship in the Bible are often of large groups of people worshiping God together. A worship service is not a group of individuals worshiping God who just happen to be in close proximity to each other. Instead, we are called together as a collective body, a worshiping community bound together by God's grace. We worship as Grace Community.
Intergenerational
Grace Community believes in being a church family that has safe and age-appropriate programming, but that brings generations together rather than dividing them into "market segments". Children and youth participate in much of our Sunday morning worship. There is a spacious nursery and during the second half of the morning there are children's worship programs for pre-K & K, 1st-3rd grades, 4-5th grades, and classes for middle school and high school students on alternating Sundays. For more information contact Elaine Wang or Steve Young.
