Worship With Us!
- Holy Eucharist ~~ Every Sunday ~~ 9:30 am
- Holy Eucharist & Healing ~~ The First Wednesday of Each Month ~~ 12:00 pm
Our Sunday services are available online on our youtube channel. Everyone is invited and welcome to attend.
Special worship services, such as Easter, Ash Wednesday, Christmas, and others, are also available online. To watch ongoing and past worship services and other videos, please visit our YouTube channel.
About the Episcopal Church and What to Expect
(From the Website of The Episcopal Church USA)
Sunday is traditionally when Episcopalians gather for worship. The principal weekly worship service is the Holy Eucharist, known as The Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, or Mass. In most Episcopal churches, worship is accompanied by hymns, and in some churches, much of the service is sung.
Worship Styles
Episcopalians worship in many different styles, from formal, ancient, and multi-sensory rites with lots of singing, music, fancy clothes (vestments), and incense to informal services with contemporary music. Yet all worship in the Episcopal church is based on the Book of Common Prayer, which gives worship a familiar feel, no matter where you go.
Liturgy and Ritual
Worship in an Episcopal church is said to be “liturgical,” meaning that the congregation follows service forms and prays from texts that don’t change significantly from week to week during a season of the year. This sameness from week to week gives worship a rhythm that becomes comforting and familiar to the worshipers.
For first-time visitors, the liturgy may be exhilarating or confusing. The services may involve standing, sitting, kneeling, sung or spoken responses, and other participatory elements that may challenge them. However, liturgical worship can be compared with a dance: once you learn the steps, you’ll appreciate the rhythm, and it becomes satisfying to dance repeatedly as the music changes.
The Holy Eucharist
Despite the diversity of worship styles in the Episcopal Church, the Holy Eucharist always has the same components and the same shape. All baptized Christians, regardless of age or denomination, are welcome to “receive communion.” Episcopalians invite all baptized people to receive, not because we take the Eucharist lightly but because we take our Baptism so seriously. Visitors who are not baptized Christians are welcome to come forward during communion to receive a blessing from the presider.
The Liturgy of the Word:
- We begin by praising God through a song and a prayer and then listen to as many as four readings from the Bible: usually one from the Old Testament, a Psalm, something from the Epistles, and (always) a reading from the Gospels. The Psalm is usually sung or recited by the congregation.
- Next, a sermon interpreting the readings appointed for the day is preached.
- The congregation then recites the Nicene Creed, written in the Fourth Century, and the church’s statement of what we believe ever since.
- Next, the congregation prays for the church, the world, and those in need. We pray for the sick and thank God for all the good things in our lives, and finally, we pray for the dead. The presider (e.g., priest, bishop, lay minister) concludes with a prayer that gathers the petitions into a communal offering of intercession.
- In certain church year seasons, the congregation formally confesses their sins before God and one another. This is a corporate statement of what we have done and what we have left undone, followed by a pronouncement of absolution. In pronouncing absolution, the presider assures the congregation that God is always ready to forgive our sins.
- The congregation then greets one another with a sign of “peace.”
The Liturgy of the Table:
- After the Liturgy of the Word, the priest stands at the table, which has been set with a cup of wine and a plate of bread or wafers, raises their hands, and greets the congregation again, saying, “The Lord Be with You.” Now begins the Eucharistic Prayer, in which the presider tells the story of our faith, from the beginning of creation through choosing Israel to be God’s people, through our continual turning away from God, and God’s calling us to return.
- Then, the presider tells the story of Jesus Christ’s coming and the night before His death, on which he instituted the Eucharistic meal (communion) as a continual remembrance of Him.
- The presider blesses the bread and wine, and the congregation recites the Lord’s Prayer.
- Finally, the presider breaks the bread and offers it to the congregation as the “Gifts of God for the People of God.”
- The congregation then shares the consecrated bread and the wine. Sometimes, the people all come forward to receive the bread and wine; sometimes, they pass the elements around in other ways.