Congregational Churches

In Congregational churches, the relationship between worship and other ministries becomes apparent when the church covenant is seen as the link between the formal worship of the gathered church and the other activities of service and witness which make up the life of the church. Congregational churches are gathered around the church covenant, in which the members pledge their loyalty to God and to one another in their common pursuit of the Christian life. An example is the covenant of the church established in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1629, the first Congregational church to be founded in what is now the United States. (The church of the pilgrims at Plymouth had been founded in Holland. ) The Salem covenant reads, in modernized spelling: We covenant with the Lord and one with another and do bind ourselves in the presence of God, to walk together in all his ways, according as he is pleased to reveal himself unto us in his blessed Word of truth. Whenever a new Congregational church …