What to Expect
At Cornerstone, we've created a worship service that retells the Gospel story. To help guide you through our service, we have a worship service bulletin that can be found at either the front or side entrances and contains all of the Scripture readings and the music we sing. We also have a welcome team committed to helping you with any questions you may have. Our church leaders are also visibly present and available, donning name bars for your convenience. So in sum, expect an army of volunteers, committed to enriching your worship of our God.
Although the worship service is historically and biblically rooted, it is presented in a manner accessible to where God has placed us in this time and in this culture. You can expect clear, penetrating exposition of God’s Word in the sermon, and we celebrate communion every week. By the way, we do not pass an offering plate during the service, but if you’d like to give financially to the ministry of the church, there are boxes available at each entrance. To get an even clearer sense of what worship will look like for you, head on over to our "Philosophy of Worship" page.
Our Purpose in Worship: Glorifying God in the Gospel
“True worship, then, will be odd and perhaps even weird to the watching world…Christian worship is, in fact, a bold political act. It subverts the world’s values by assigning glory and praise to the one whom the world despises. And as weak as the church at worship might appear to the watching world, the truth is that the powers of this world are no match for the power of God who is present among his people when they gather to sing praise, pray, and hear his Word. Moreover the church must reject the claim that worship is old-fashioned, irrelevant, and isolated from the ‘real world.’ For believers, the church at worship is the real world.”
—D.G. Hart & John Muether, With Reverence and Awe
We begin the service with the Call to Worship—God calling His people out of the world into His presence. There is an intentional covenantal element to this act of being called forth and set apart. The following hymns/songs of praise reflect the nature and character of who God is and what He has done. The result is that we are convicted of our sin—He is God and we are not and we have fallen far short of His standard of holiness.
As we enter a time of Confession and Assurance of Pardon, we ask the Lord to search our hearts and make known our sin. Through confession, repentance and restoration, we are washed clean and are then able to hear the Word of God preached with a renewed mind and heart. God then provides a sign of His faithfulness as He feeds us at the table of Communion.
Having met with God, been cleansed from sin, been instructed in His Word, and fed with bread and wine as the reminder of His sacrifice that also seals the promise of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, we are then equipped to be sent out missionally to portray, convey, and spread the Gospel through all of life.
This worship flow consisting of God separating and calling His people, revealing Himself, convicting us of sin, granting pardon, instructing us, equipping us, and sending us out into the world mirrors the gift of salvation. Each week we walk through a sustaining reminder of God’s work in our hearts and lives—God’s effectual call that has brought us from death unto life, from darkness into life. We should leave worship rejoicing as well as renewed.
Much like the Israelites, we are forgetful people. Part of working out our salvation with fear and trembling is the weekly practice of remembering what it is that God has done as well as who He is. Too often we are slow of heart, but God is His great mercy graciously renews our hearts week after week, month by month, and year after year in the keeping of the Lord’s Day and in the service to Him. The “otherness” of worship in its Gospel flow becomes a sanctifying gift.