Alternative Worship In The Free Church Tradition

At Grace Fellowship Church, worship dwells on the restoration of the world, which in turn creates the longing for worship. Worship draws from both the traditional and the contemporary and builds around a theme usually developed in acts of Entrance, Word, Table, and Dismissal. Both the influence of the liturgical movement and the praise-and-worship tradition is evident in this pattern of worship. When our congregation was formed seven years ago, we wanted worship to be the first thing we did. For a while, it was the only thing we did. There were no programs to maintain, no agenda to fulfill; the focus of our congregation was simply to be a worshiping people, open to the Spirit of God. What we've discovered is that the ministries and programs that have since sprung up have been born, not out of an isolated sense of what the church "ought" to do, but out of a growing commitment to worship. Worship is the great integrator of our lives. If on Sunday we praise God for being the One who r…