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What to Expect

Sunday Worship

GATHERING @ 5PM

Covenant Renewal Worship

PARTICIPATORY. CHEERFUL. FAMILY-INTEGRATED.

A man in a dark blazer and white shirt stands in a living room, holding papers, speaking to a seated audience. There is a large window in the background and a piano is visible in the room. People of various ages are seated, attentively listening.
Glass of red wine next to a loaf of bread on a wooden cutting board, with stacked books in the background.
Woman playing a piano with sheet music on the stand, alongside a loaf of bread and two glasses of red wine on the piano top.

Sunday worship at Christ the King Evangelical Church takes the form and order of a covenant renewal service in which we follow the Scriptural pattern for communion with God. In the service, God does the initiating and we do the responding. Worship is therefore very participatory; there’s back-and-forth. This rhythm is what some have called the 5 Cs of covenant renewal:

  • God calls His people into His presence and we respond with praise and confession of sin; 

  • God cleanses His people of their sin through the minister’s words of absolution and we respond with thanksgiving; 

  • God consecrates His people through the reading and preaching of His Word and we respond by giving ourselves to Him; 

  • God communes with His people at His Table with bread and wine and we respond by eating and drinking with thanksgiving; 

  • God finally commissions His people with a blessing to go and do likewise and thus, we go and do what has been done to us—we call the world to be reconciled to God through Christ by the Spirit.

PARTICIPATORY

Our worship is remarkably cheerful. Loud ‘amens’, hearty singing, fervent preaching are regular features of our Sunday gatherings.

CHEERFUL

Worship doesn’t have an age requirement. God’s grace is for the young and old alike. At Christ the King Evangelical Church our children worship right alongside us. We know it can get noisy and messy at times, but “Where there are no oxen, the trough is clean” (Prov. 14:4a) and where the trough is clean famine is sure to follow. So, we most gladly welcome our children, rustling, whimpers and all, for we much rather a messy stall with life than an austere, sterile one without them.

FAMILY-INTEGRATED

FAQs

  • Everyone has a liturgy. Liturgy is simply the way churches structure their worship. At CTK, we structure our service with elements that have biblical warrant and historical precedence, not with elements of innovation or novelty. And so, our liturgy on Sunday is our effort to worship with Bible in hand and tradition in mind. We’re seeking to exalt our Triune God joyfully and reverently through time-tested, biblically-rooted beauty (Ps. 29:2).

  • At CTK, we believe, along with a great portion of Church history, that all who are baptized in the Triune Name are welcome to the Lord’s Table. If they can be fed at our tables in our homes, how much more, once they’re baptized, should they be fed and nourished at His.

  • We use it because Jesus did, and so did His people—for centuries. Wine complements the kind of meal we’re partaking in and the sort of meal Jesus instituted. It was and is a meal of celebration, a meal of victory. And so, we celebrate at the King’s Table of victory with what the King has given to celebrate the victory—that is, what He has given to gladden the heart of man (Ps. 104:14-15).

  • We raise our hands because the apostle Paul said to pray in this manner (1 Tim. 2:8) and the psalmist agrees that this is just how God’s people should do things in the sanctuary (Ps. 134:2).

  • Your children are most gladly welcome to our gathering with their rustlings, whimpers and all. We do not offer an alternative program for them because we think that there is no better place for them to be than in the worship of God with God’s people. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me” (Lk. 18:16). And so, we say with Him Sunday after Sunday, come. Let all the little chidren come!

What else can you expect at a CREC church like ours? Click below.