Worship

We exist to worship God!
We all worship something. Maybe we worship our work, our money (or someone else’s), a celebrity, our leisure, or something else. God wired us to worship…to worship Him. Often, our problem is that we end up worshiping the creation rather than the Creator.

Many years ago, the Puritans wrote down what they believed the Bible taught them in the “Westminster Confession of Faith.” Among the most profound of the statements the Puritans believed is the following, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and to love Him forever.”  That is the Old English way of saying our reason for existence is to worship God and love Him forever.

FBCE’s purpose for existence is to help you make this most critical connection – a personal relationship with God, which begins in worship.  God designed worship to be practiced individually and in community.

Individually, we worship through reading and living His Word, praying for and following His leadership, and more. We worship God in community by coming together in Jesus’ name.  Jesus has promised His presence in community worship, “where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” Each week when we come together to worship the Father in His name we can expect to dwell together in the presence of our risen Lord.

Worship is not an activity which occurs only on a Sunday morning in a church; it is to be holistic practice which is to effect all of each Christian’s life.

To take that first step in connecting to God in worship, join us for weekly worship services (Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m., Sundays at 8:30 a.m. for our traditional worship time or 11:00 a.m. for contemporary worship) in venues that are engaging, relevant, and helpful to our lives where you will have the opportunity to hear from God.

Our style of worship at First Baptist Church of Emerson is “celebration,” “inspiration,” and “preparation.”

There are many biblical forms for one to express worship to God.

Among them are:

Singing
¹⁹ Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, ²⁰ always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 5:19-20

Commitment
¹ Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. ² Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:1-2

Praying
⁶ Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; ⁷ for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.

Psalms 95:6-7

Hearing the Word
¹⁷ Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.

John 17:17

¹⁶ I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. ¹⁷ For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

Romans 1:16-17

Giving
¹ Now about the collection for God’s people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. ² On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.

1 Corinthians 16:1-2

Baptism
³ Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Romans 6:3-4

Contemplation
²⁰ But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.”

Habakkuk 2:20

Meditating
¹⁴ May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Psalm 19:14

²⁷ Let me understand the teaching of your precepts; then I will meditate on your wonders.

Psalm 119:27

⁴⁸ I lift up my hands to your commands, which I love, and I meditate on your decrees.

Psalm 119:48

¹⁴⁸ My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises.

Psalm 119:148

The Lord’s Supper
²³ For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, ²⁴ and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” ²⁵ In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” ²⁶ For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26