How We Worship

The services of this congregation, like all Episcopal congregations, and other liturgical churches, follows a simple pattern laid out in The Book of Common Prayer. This Prayer Book, now more than 500 years old, has been revised many times, but it connects us with the prayer of our past and the prayer of most of the world’s Christians.

The main service on Sundays and other days is called “The Holy Eucharist” or “The Mass” or “the Lord’s supper.” It consists of

• Hymns and prayers of praise,
• The reading of scripture,
•  a sermon or “homily”,
• the recitation of the Nicene Creed,
• prayers of intercession,
• bread and wine is offered,
• thanksgiving is said,
• and the bread and wine shared around the Lord’s table.
  

Our worship is at 10:00am and includes hymns and the singing of liturgical texts. Children and families are welcome. We have a nursery available from 9:45-11:15am.

About the use of Scripture in Worship

Holy Scripture is read at the Sunday liturgy in a three-year schedule of readings called “a Lectionary”. Most liturgical churches follow a similar, often identical, schedule of readings. Normally it includes a lesson from the Old Testament, a Psalm, a lesson from the New Testament Epistles, and a reading from one of the Gospels. Anglicans, like their Roman Catholic friends, read one of the lessons occasionally from a collection of books called “The apocrypha.” Anglicans do not consider these books to have the same authority as the rest of the scriptures, but find the texts enriching. Occasionally the Old Testament reading is from an apocryphal book.