Greetings to you and your household,
Here are a few things to help prepare our hearts for our corporate gatherings this week.
Eastside Baptist Church
204 Eastland Drive North
Twin Falls, ID
This Week
Sunday
- 9:15 a.m Sunday Morning Bible Study
- 10:30 a.m. Morning Worship Gathering
- 5:30 p.m. Monthly Membership Meeting
Wednesday
- 5:30 p.m. Mid-Week Prayer Gathering
Thursday
- Thanksgiving Day
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Liturgy: all public ceremonies that belong to divine service, a repertoire of ideas, phrases, or observances.
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Every corporate service we conduct is structured with a liturgy. Our Sunday morning gatherings follow a similar pattern with a collection of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. We have pastoral prayer, public reading of Scripture and exposition (preaching) of Scripture. Observance of ordinances are a weekly part of our worship to God.
- Financial giving is received in a basket as you enter the auditorium.
- You can expect that we open every service with a Psalm. We sing a song based upon a chapter in psalms, we read that same psalm as our call to worship. It is at the beginning of our service to set the mind upon God. We generally begin as close to 10:30 a.m. as possible.
- We follow the Psalm with a time for personal confession
- followed by a time of pastoral prayer.
- The next two songs are hymns/spiritual songs. One of these songs is a past fight hymn of the month from the past three years.
- We follow the two songs with children’s catechism.
- The exposition of the text follows catechism. I begin this time with an invitation to stand for the reading of the text at which time I encourage your exhortation to me as you are standing to say out loud “Give us the book!”. When I finish reading I proclaim “This is the word of God.” Followed by the congregation saying “And we believe it.” You can practice this at home with your children, helping them to be actively listening and responding.
- After the preaching, I invite believing men to exhort the congregation with a response to the sermon. All believing men are welcome to participate in this.
- We follow this with a time of personal and family prayer. Heads of households are instructed to pray with the family and give instructions about the Lord’s Table.
- The Lord’s Table is a sacred ordinance in which the professing believers proclaim together the Lord’s death. Those sharing at the table are those who confess their belief in the Lord Jesus, the Christ, as Savior.
- We follow the Lord’s Table with the current fighter song of the month. I invite the congregation to respond together after this song by saying “Hallelujah”.
- The benediction is a song titled “Law/Gospel/Doxology”
- We dismiss the gathering with a Scriptural benediction from the pastor.
This is the totality of the Sunday morning gathering. All parts are part of the whole. It’s understandable that the unpredictable nature of organizing members of households and multiple households gathering together that there are times when one may be late from time to time. Lateness should not cause someone to not gather, but let me encourage you to plan to arrive early so that no part of the gathering is missed.
Note about Children’s catechism:
I’m currently writing a series of questions/answers for the Advent season. I will have them ready for families by the first Sunday of December. This week I will ask the children to tell me one thing they are thankful to God for. You can help them think about this by asking them tonight and reminding them that I will be asking them this question in the morning.
I’m looking forward to meeting with you in the morning, Lord willing.
Paul Thompson <><
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