Visiting a church for the first time can be intimidating. We hope that the following information will give you an idea of what it is like to join us for a weekend service - at least, what it’s like when we aren’t in the middle of a pandemic. During this unusual season:

• We are recommending that every worshiper wear a mask.
• We are practicing social distancing.
• We are not providing childcare.

But under normal circumstances, we hope this page will help you know what to expect when you visit us on a Sunday morning. We can’t wait to meet you!

Sunday Morning 

Our phi­los­o­phy of wor­ship is sim­ple and is derived from the com­mands of Scrip­ture. We believe that when we gather, we should:

Read the Scriptures

Paul com­manded Tim­o­thy to devote him­self to the pub­lic read­ing of Scrip­ture (1 Tim. 4:13a). Else­where, he com­manded that his let­ters not only be read by the recip­i­ents but shared with other churches as well (1 Thess. 5:27, Col. 4:16). We struc­ture our wor­ship ser­vices to devote time to the pub­lic read­ing of Scripture.

Sing to God and to One Another

As we sing praises to God, we are also com­manded to sing to one another in psalms, hymns, and spir­i­tual songs (Eph. 5:19). In wor­ship, singing has the dual pur­pose of hon­or­ing God and edi­fy­ing the church. Our wor­ship team plays a vari­ety of songs that fea­ture God-glorifying, bib­li­cal lyrics, rang­ing from ancient hymns of our faith to songs writ­ten specif­i­cally for New Life. We struc­ture our wor­ship ser­vices to devote time to singing to God and to one another.

Preach the Word

Before his mar­tyr­dom, Paul wrote to Tim­o­thy, “I charge you in the pres­ence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the liv­ing and the dead, and by his appear­ing and his king­dom: preach the word; be ready in sea­son and out of sea­son; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with com­plete patience and teach­ing” (2 Tim. 4:1–2). We believe that one of the pri­mary ways that God speaks to us is through the preach­ing of the Word. Whether we are doing a short top­i­cal series or going through a book of the Bible, our aim is to preach expo­si­tion­ally — explain­ing and apply­ing the Bible as the authors intended. We struc­ture our wor­ship ser­vices to devote the bulk of our time to the preach­ing of the Word.

Observe the Ordinances

On the night Jesus was betrayed, he celebrated a final Passover meal with his disciples (Matt. 26:26-29, Mk. 14:22-25, Lk. 22:14-23). During that meal, he took bread and broke it, saying that it represented his body broken for them. After supper, he took a cup of wine and said it represented his blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins. He said that as often as we ate the bread and drank the wine, we were to do it in remembrance of him. The Apostle Paul also explained that when we take the Lord's Supper, we are proclaiming Jesus' death until he returns (1 Cor. 11:26). At New Life, we invite all baptized believers to receive the Lord's Supper weekly in our worship service, which symbolizes our communion with God and one another through faith in Jesus our Lord. 

We also regularly celebrate baptism at the end of our worship services, which symbolizes our death with Christ and our resurrection to new life through faith in him (Rom. 6:4). Those being baptized share the story of how they came to faith in Jesus with us, and then we immerse them in water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in obedience to Jesus (Matt. 28:19-20).

Pray to God through Christ our Mediator

Paul writes, “Con­tinue stead­fastly in prayer, being watch­ful in it with thanks­giv­ing” (Col. 4:2). We believe that we can do noth­ing apart from God, and we believe that God answers us when we pray to Him through Christ our Medi­a­tor. We do not use prayer as a “filler” before mov­ing on to another aspect of the ser­vice. Rather, we are inten­tional regard­ing how we pray and what we pray for. We struc­ture our wor­ship ser­vices to devote time to prayer.

Preschoolers, Children, and Youth in Worship

We are glad to have chil­dren of all ages wor­ship with us on Sunday morning. However, we also pro­vide preschool care during our worship services for chil­dren birth through 4 years old. This allows par­ents of younger chil­dren to focus on wor­ship as they con­tinue to train and dis­ci­ple their chil­dren at home.

For school-aged chil­dren, we pro­vide wor­ship bags that have a number of items to help them par­tic­i­pate in the wor­ship ser­vice. These bags include clip­boards, a col­or­ful wor­ship guide, paper, crayons, and pen­cils. We believe these bags will help par­ents and teach kids to enjoy com­ing to wor­ship. You can pick these bags up at the entrance of the Gathering Room on your way into wor­ship and drop it off at the gray box on your way out.

For youth (preteens and teenagers), we provide clipboards with a sermon notes page attached to them. Students can use these guides to help them follow along during the sermon, and they serve as a helpful discussion guide for further conversation with parents and youth volunteers.

Discipleship for Children and Youth

Our hope is that families will choose to worship together at 9:15am, and then participate in our discipleship programming in The Preserve (Suite 110) at 11:00am on Sunday mornings. During this hour, our preschool­ers go through cur­ricu­lum that helps them to under­stand the Bible’s major themes and sto­ries. Older chil­dren (K-4th grade) read Scrip­ture, learn the­ol­ogy, and enjoy time together with our ded­i­cated vol­un­teers. Our youth (5th–12th grade) meet to hear Gospel-centered teach­ing, par­tic­i­pate in discussion, and build friendships with one another. Our kids also have opportunities throughout the year to meet together outside of Sunday evenings to learn, serve, and have fun together.

We would love to see you soon!

If you have ques­tions about our wor­ship ser­vices, preschool care, or any­thing else, we are here to help you. You may speak to a vol­un­teer at our Con­nect Booth as soon as you enter the front doors on Sun­day morning or contact us using the link below.

CONTACT US