Our Sunday Blueprint
At Harbor West, we believe that Jesus is beautiful. We believe that the Gospel, the story of Jesus defeating sin and death and redeeming the world, is truly beautiful, true, and good. We passionately work to display that beauty in our church liturgy, weekly gatherings, and we pray to see that beauty shine out in the lives of our church members. To the first time church visitor, any worship service can be a confusing ordeal. Singing, announcements, reading together, praying quietly, sitting and standing. What for? Why? This blueprint will help to orient you on Sunday mornings as we gather to sing, repent, hear the Gospel, feast on the goodness of God in Jesus Christ, and be sent back out into the world to live sacrificial lives in our communities.
First, we use the “liturgy” to describe the things we do on a Sunday morning. The word liturgy, coming from the Greek word leitourgia, means simply the public work for, or worship of, God. We are using this word to highlight that our Sunday service is not a passive experiences to be consumed, but rather a dialogue between God and His people, a public drama of the Gospel to be (re)enacted.
We pattern our liturgy in the way that the Christian Church has done for almost 2000 years. It’s a simple pattern, one that tells the story of the Gospel. Each week we are caught up into God’s story of salvation and redemption through the work of Jesus on the cross. Each week our faith is strengthened through the preaching of God’s Word and the communion meal. All the steps along the way are planned to tell this beautiful story and send us back into the world, ready to live for Christ. Here are five key moments along the way in our liturgy at Harbor West:
I. Call To Worship
God calls us into fellowship with Himself and others, making and remaking his Church, calling us into worship of Him. We start our service with God’s Word, because without it we have no reason to gather. We respond with loud and joyful singing.
II. Confession and Assurance
He graciously convicts us of our sin and mercifully forgives us, reminding us of the power of the cross and empty tomb, making peace by His blood. It is strange in our day to have a time of silence where we reflect on our brokenness and God’s forgiveness, which is why we need this time even more! We respond again with thankful singing.
III. Greeting
Since peace is made between God and man, peace can be a reality person to person. We now welcome each other as brothers and sisters, all blood bought saints, all sinners made clean.
IV. Word | Communion
After calling, convicting, and forgiving us. God gives us all the riches of His grace in His son, Jesus Christ. We receive Jesus in the proclamation of the Word and in eating the communion meal together. We come to these moments bringing nothing, and yet we receive everything. These are the high points of our service, the Word and Table. We listen, eat, and drink with joy, knowing that we are receiving faith-strengthening grace. When we come to the Word and Table, we bring nothing and we truly receive Christ and all His goodness.Our response is loud and joyful singing.
V. Benediction
At the end of this Gospel (re)enactment, God sends us back into His world. His plan to save and redeem the world continues. We find ourselves equipped and called to be lights in the dark and to draw more sinners back to the table of grace. We respond by living our lives as “sent” people.
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While we consider very carefully how this pattern will be received by people in our own day and age, we also want to be careful not to turn a deaf ear to the lessons of the past. We refuse to believe that we’re smarter than a few millennia of faithful saints who practiced the same basic liturgy, on every continent, in all kinds of cultures and contexts.