Worship at Saint Luke's

Doctrine and Worship

In the Reformed Episcopal Church we combine the preaching of grace and sanctification as these doctrines were enunciated by such great reformers as Martin Luther and John Calvin with ordered structures of worship as they were developed by the universal church in its earliest centuries and refined from unbiblical accretions during the English Reformation.

Faith

Life is filled with gifts for which we give thanks. Yet the greatest gift is what God has done for us in His Son Jesus Christ. Because of sin, human beings are not naturally intimate with God (whose justice requires the punishment of sin). Thanks then to God for Jesus Christ, our representative both in His faultless life and in His death upon a cross. By that life righteousness is credited to us. By that death He bore our punishment. Yes, this beneficence is applied to us through faith. But even this faith is not our own doing, but rather the sovereign working of the Holy Spirit on our behalf. Our redemption, then, is due one hundred percent to God's grace, zero percent to our personal merit.

New Covenant

God's righteous law and the severity of His judgment apply to everyone, but His saving grace to the people of Jesus Christ alone. Therefore the Lord Jesus commissioned His church to "make disciples of all nations" (Mt 28), and so bring closer that day prophesied by Isaiah wherein God declares, "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (Is 11). Likewise Jeremiah reports that God's law should be written as an unbreakable covenant in the hearts of His people: "For they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord" (Jer 31). This, therefore, is the normal condition for the church, the Body of Christ: that all its members be knit together in both a knowledge of Holy Writ and a determination to worship their Creator and Redeemer, not by tribe and by blood, but "in spirit and in truth" (Jn 4).

Obedience

Yet Jesus is no Redeemer to be trusted if He is not also a legislator to be obeyed. By baptism we have been buried to sin and rebellion and born again to good works--by which we give thanks to God. For along with our tithes we offer to Him our whole lives in worship. Because we are His, as He is ours, we work to advance His kingdom -- Jesus Christ as Lord, both of the church and a rebellious world.

Liturgy

Worship in spirit and in truth is as needed in our churches today as it was when the Lord's apostles first employed forms they knew from the synagogue to praise the risen Christ. The purpose of our common prayer is also to exalt Christ as we bow before Him. Those who have wondered about the foundation for liturgical worship may test the biblical evidence. No entire liturgies are preserved in the Bible, but the New Testament is in fact filled with quotations from and references to liturgy. Paul commends the Corinthians for maintaining traditions as he delivered them (1 Cor 11:2). Peter quotes a baptismal instruction (1 Pt 3:18). Hymns (Phil 2:6), confessions (1 Tim. 3:16), catechisms (1 Cor 15:3-5, Rom 1:2-4), and Trinitarian formulae (2 Cor 13:14, Jude 20-21) pervade the Epistles. The earliest Christians "continued steadfastly in the Apostles' teaching and worship, and in the breaking of bread" (cf. 1 Cor 11:23), and in the prayers (Acts 2:42). In fact, when His disciples inquired, the Lord Himself instructed them in a corporate prayer: "Our Father ... give us this day ... etc."

We make use of written prayers and hymns so that we too might sing and pray as a body. Liturgical prayers do not depend on the performance and personality of the pastor. They reserve all the honor to God and involve the whole congregation in His worship. Furthermore, these traditional forms ensure that the needs or impulses of the day do not cause us to forget those things that are needed every day. Yet just as many forms of music allow for improvisation within a larger structure, so does our liturgy provide a place for the spontaneous petitions and prayers of individuals in the congregation. We recognize this need. But we hold that a framework must contain liberty within order if confusion is to be avoided and the focus of worship is to be maintained.

The Lord's Supper

Our entire service points toward the Lord's Supper. This is based on Scripture and commandment. For the Lord Jesus said, "take this bread and eat it; take this wine and drink it. These are my body and blood, broken and poured out for you and for many in covenant. Do this often, remembering me till I come" (Mt 26, Mk 14, Lk 22, Jn 6, 1 Cor 11). Occasionally a believer may feel challenged to rededicate his "decision for Christ." But the Lord's Supper regularly reminds the worshiper (who is after all the chosen, not the Chooser) of the singular decision Christ made for him; how "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly (Rom 5, 1 Pt 3)." Through this grace bequeathed to us by our Lord, Christians of every age and country are brought by the Author of Eternity from the confines of their several appointments in time and space into communion together at the cross. At the cross Jesus offered up Himself once to be the single, full, sufficient and final sacrifice for the sins of the world. So in this foretaste of the heavenly banquet we can together draw near, at once to God and to each other, in perfect fellowship.

Within His House

All baptized Christians, including children, are welcome to share with us in the fellowship of the Lord's table. If you are visiting us from elsewhere, we hope you will take from us some blessing you may share. However, if you have been searching for a church, we are confident that you will find here good and fertile ground for faith and growth in the service of the Lord.