Currently worship is at-home worship through facebook live. Pastor Julie is live and people gather together through the comments. Like our in person worship, we value worship that is participatory and not just observing. So we start with a greeting question, and take time to share where we have seen God this week. After the sermon we have a time of discussion. Our offering time is interactive and usually involves an activity such as coloring or sometimes dancing. During our time of prayer we explore different prayer practice. Occasionally we celebrate communion together and then we are sent forth with a song. Here is a link to a typical order of worship for you to see what it is like. Here is the link to our facebook live worships. You are able to watch and participate with all our past worships.
Below are descriptions of the values we utilize when we gather in person. During our virtual at-home worship we strive to retain those values.
Here at Evergreen much of what we do in worship will be familiar: we read scripture, sing, have a sermon. Yet some of what we do might be a little different: we talk to each other, we explore different prayer practices, we eat together. The elements of our worship varies from week to week. Read on to see how our values guide our worship:
We value personally engaging our faith in worship: Faith is not a spectator sport. As much as possible we are work to make the parts of worship about the congregation doing rather than only receiving because we learn not by merely watching others, but also by doing ourselves. So the congregation sings, read scriptures, responds back to the sermon with question or discussion, engages in prayer practices, and gives their offerings. Our pastor and leadership team also welcome input from the congregation about topics, scriptures, beliefs, or questions they would like to engage in during worship.
We value building community: One of the greatest epidemics in our world today is loneliness and disconnection, and God made us for connection and relationships. Since worship is our main activity together we want to make sure we are connecting with each other in worship. So we will have time for you to get to know those you are worshiping with. Part of our worship set up includes rounds tables so that you can grab a donut and coffee before or after worship and sit down and get to know each other better.
We value eating together: Jesus ate with his disciples, and he ate with sinners, and he ate with the self-righteous religious folk. He ate with everyone, a lot. Eating together is an important part of building community. So we include our refreshments in the sanctuary for people to have before, during or after worship. We also have luncheons once a month that we think of as an extensions of worship, for us to eat together.
Overall: If you are looking for the type of worship that you can just sneak in the back, not talk to anyone, not do much and leave, then this isn’t going to be the right place for you. But if you are the type of person who gets bored only listening, who zones out listening to others pray, or who really wants to find your people, makes some friends and find a place to belong, then this might be the place for you. This does not mean that our worship is only for extroverts. We will vary what we do in worship week to week so that some elements might appeal more to extroverts and some to introverts. No one will ever be forced to share, or forced to pray out loud, or forced to do anything really.
A few other things to know about our worship:
We are casual: We believe in doing worship well and we also believe in not taking ourselves too seriously, because worship is about God, not about us getting everything right. This means we might change a song on the fly because one isn’t working; it means kids are welcome to make the noises that kids make; and it means we don’t sweat it if we make a “mistake” because worship isn’t about getting everything right. It’s not like we can only worship God when everything is perfect. “Mistakes” in worship remind us that we worship God right in the middle of our imperfect, messy lives.
We like lively music: Our music is led by guitar and/or piano. We mostly sing contemporary music with hymns and gospel included as well.
We welcome all God’s children to worship together: God made us and loves us all. Some of us make more noise, or have trouble getting around, or aren’t good at sitting still. We have a special place for children in worship called a pray-ground that you can read more about here. If you have a child or family member or friend with special needs, you are welcome here. And if we are not yet set up to accommodate that need, please talk to us so that we can make those adjustments.
We have communion each week: Methodists believe that we are constantly in need of God’s grace in order to live and grow as Christians. God’s grace strengthens, empowers, convicts, transforms, and assures us. Through the sacrament of Holy Communion (or Eucharist) God has promised to always give us his grace. Therefore, we have communion every week because every week we need God’s grace. This means that even if the sermon is awful or if you got distracted and forgot to listen, the prayers don’t make sense, or you don’t have the energy to sing, God’s grace is still and always there for you. Having communion each week means that no matter what, when we come to worship, we will always receive God’s grace.
Also in the Methodist church we believe that this is Christ’s table, not ours, and Christ is the host. So all (and we do mean all) who respond to the invitation are welcome at Christ’s table. With our desire to be open to all, we provide a gluten free option for communion (if you have other allergies let us know and we will be happy to accommodate), and our communion “wine” is grape juice.
We also recognize that not everyone is comfortable receiving communion for a variety of reasons and we respect that.