What To Expect When You Join Us For Worship

It is our conviction that worship is the central and primary action of the Christian life.
Everything else we do as Christians flows out of our worship of the triune God. The work of the Church is to participate in the mission of God; the central component of the mission of God is the worship of God (Deut 6:4-5, Matt 22:34-40).

Worship is, at its core, the people of God entering into the presence of God and joining a worship service that is always, unceasingly, in progress (Isa 6:1-4, Rev 4:1-11). In that sense, worship gives us a glimpse of the heavenly throne room and gives us communion with all the saints who have gone before us, who are part of this neverending choir.

EVERYTHING we do is worship. Our lives are to be a living sacrifice of praise (Heb 13:15). Therefore, everything we do when we consider the things of God or give glory to him is “worship.” Music is worship, reading scripture aloud is worship, prayer is worship, preaching is worship, celebrating the Eucharist is worship (we are having Eucharist on the 3rd Sunday of each month, as we are currently without a priest).

The best time to arrive at a church service is before the service starts.
We recommend 15 minutes before the service time. This gives time for you to orient yourself to the space, look through our worship guide, meet some other people (if that's your thing), and prepare yourself to hear about Jesus.

Some people want to be very social before the service; some people want time to quietly reflect. But in any case, planning your day so you can walk into the sanctuary about 15 minutes before the service is a good rule of thumb.

Everything you need is in the worship guide (i.e. bulletin, program, service guide) available near the front door of the building.

There is a beauty to knowing, on any Sunday, that we are saying basically the same liturgy as tens of millions of Anglicans around the world, and countless more back through the centuries.

We are an Anglican Church, which means our services are collected from the Book of Common Prayer. (We typically use the Revised Ancient Text from the ACNA's 2019 version, if you're curious). The bulk of our liturgies date back to the 1500s, and their roots trace back in some cases to the early 1100s. The Eucharist liturgy (currently only on the 3rd Sunday of each month, as we are without a priest) has a narrative flow that moves from gathering in the presence of the Lord, acknowledging him as supreme, hearing from his Holy Word, confessing our sins and being assured of forgiveness, praying for our people, our church, our diocese, our city, and our world, and then receiving the Lord's Supper as a church family.

What do we wear?
Our clergy wear clerical shirts and a stole (colored scarf that drapes over the shoulders). Sometimes they wear dress pants, sometimes they wear jeans. Sometimes they put on full "vestments" (clerical robes), sometimes they don't.

What should you wear?
Wear something appropriate and comfortable. Don't wear something you can't kneel in (there's a bit of kneeling in our service).
There's nothing casual about entering into the presence of the resurrected King, but there's also no rule that says you have to put on a tie or a dress to do that, either. It's more about attitude than attire.

Christianity is a singing faith, and our service has a lot of singing. More than most other world religions, our scripture talks of the people of God singing. Christians down through the ages, whenever and wherever they lived, have been known as a singing people.

All the words you need are in the worship guide, but the tunes aren't in there. If you don't know the tune, don't feel pressure to sing. But remember this: it doesn't matter how well you sing; God delights in the singing of his people, even those of us who don't think we're "good" at it.

Also known as Eucharist (literally "giving thanks") or The Lord's Supper, this is one of the sacraments of the church that has been practiced since Jesus himself instituted it the night before his crucifixion.

Any baptized Christian can receive communion at Restoration; you don't need to be a member of our church.
However, only baptized Christians can receive communion at Restoration. Those who aren't baptized or aren't Christians can still come forward during communion, but instead of receiving the bread and wine, they will cross their arms in front of their chest and the priest will pray a blessing over them.

In addition to regular bread and wine, we also have gluten-free bread and grape juice available; just ask when it's your turn.