A Place to Worship God
As you enter, you will notice an atmosphere of reverence. Scripture makes clear that worship is God drawing us into His presence by His grace, into His throne room. That is first played out in the quiet, prayerful way we enter the church building. We enter God’s house, God’s throne room. Inside, the placement of the Holy Table is central to our focus. On the right side as you look forward is a lectern on which the Bible is placed. From here the Lessons for the day are read. On the left side is the pulpit, from which the sermon is preached.
Our worship is active and congregational.
We use the Book of Common Prayer, which enables the parish to fully share and participate in each service. Some people find themselves uncomfortable in a liturgical service, but there is no need to feel that way!
The word liturgy simply means form or work. It means the form by which we worship God. A simple rule in our liturgical service is that we stand to sing. We stand to affirm our faith (the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, for example), and we stand to be exhorted (when you hear the words “Dearly beloved…”). We sit to hear instruction. So we sit during the Lessons from the Bible, and also during the sermon. We kneel when praying, as a sign of both humility and thanksgiving in speaking to the King, our Father.
The Book of Common Prayer
We worship using the 1928 Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is one of the most influential works in the English language. While many of us are familiar with such famous works as, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here…” or “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” we may not know that they originated with The Book of Common Prayer, which first appeared in 1549 during the English Reformation. Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, organized the traditional Western liturgy from Latin into an authoritative manual of Christian worship throughout England. As time passed, new forms of the book were made to suit the many English-speaking nations: first in Scotland, then in the new United States, and eventually wherever the British Empire extended its arm.
REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH MISSION STATEMENT
BUILT upon the foundation of the authoritative Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, the Reformed Episcopal Church sets her highest priority on biblical worship and declares her commitment to the work of evangelism, the bold and unadulterated proclamation of salvation by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 8:4).
In keeping the faith once delivered to the saints, the Reformed Episcopal Church, however, does not believe evangelism to be the end, but rather the beginning of her divinely given vocation.
Thus, she is deeply committed to discipleship, the work of training evangelized men and women in Christian living (St. Matthew 28:20).
When the gospel is truly proclaimed and the mercies of God are made known, redeemed men and women must be led to offer their bodies as a living sacrifice, which is their spiritual service
(Romans 12:1).
Thus, the Reformed Episcopal Church understands the Christian life to be necessarily corporate. The Gospel call of salvation is not only to a Savior but also to a visible communion (I Corinthians 12:27), which, being indwelt by Christ’s Spirit, transcends both temporal and geographic bounds.
Therefore, the Reformed Episcopal Church is creedal, following the historic catholic faith as it was affirmed by the early undivided church in the Apostles’ (a.d. 150), Nicene (a.d. 325), and Athanasian (ca. a.d. 401) Creeds; sacramental, practicing the divinely ordained sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as outward and visible signs of His inward and spiritual grace; liturgical, using the historic Book of Common Prayer; and episcopal, finding unity with the Church of the earliest Christian eras through submission to the government of godly bishops.
In this fashion, by embracing the broad base of doctrine and practice inherent in apostolic Christianity received by the Church of the Reformation, and expressed in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, the Reformed Episcopal Church has
a foundation for effective ministry in the name of Christ to a world which is lost and dying without Him.
Can I Partake In The Eucharist?
As Anglicans, we allow anyone who is a baptized Christian to take Communion with us.
We simply ask that you remember that the Sacrament of our Lord’s Body and Blood is a holy and sacred event. Therefore, come to the table willingly, thankfully, in reverence, and with a clean conscience.
