What to Anticipate

Every church has a way in which they gather and worship. Some liturgies are more formal, following a church calendar with a specific regimented Sunday structure, and others are organic and open-ended.

At FCC, we seek to worship in a way that is structured enough to anticipate worship throughout the service but organic enough that we can tend to the work that God is doing in our midst.

Below you will find what an average Sunday morning worship service looks like at FCC. Whether you join us in person or online, we hope this helps you envision what you can anticipate at our 9:30 AM service.

  • We enter the Sanctuary, beholding the beautiful sound of music in anticipation and preparation for the worship of Jesus as a gathered community.

  • After the Prelude finishes, one of our pastors will extend a welcome, inviting us into a place of collective worship.

  • Led by our organist and often guided by the voices of our choir members, we sing a song from our hymnal, “The Hymnal for Worship and Celebration.”

  • As a confessional church, which means our shared confession unifies us, we recite our Words of Witness as both a reminder of our unity in Christ and our public statement of the substance of our faith.

  • We sing a short song of worship showing exultation and praise to the Holy Trinity.

  • After a quick hello to your neighbor, we will give relevant announcements for the week and month ahead. We work hard to communicate well in order to connect beyond our Sunday morning worship!

  • We are blessed to have a congregation that values and loves music. Each week someone prepares something special for the congregation, which invites us further into spaces of praise, reflection, and beauty.

  • Each Sunday, we pray for our congregation, take a minute of silence in personal dialogue with God, and then collectively recite the Lord’s Prayer.

  • The choir sings a song highlighting some of the central themes within the Scripture reading and teaching we will receive from the pastor.

  • We sing a short song of worship showing adoration and praise to God, who sustains us.

  • Each week we have a different reader, who reads, out loud, the selected passage that the pastor will then teach. We end the reading when the speaker says, “This is the Word of the Lord,” and the congregation responds, “Thanks be to God.”

  • After the reading of Scripture, we listen to a sermon, generally around 20 minutes from Pastor Jon. The message is grounded in Scripture and its application to our lives.

  • We practice Holy Communion together several times a year on high church holidays. We distribute the elements before worship services begin and take communion together as one church family.

  • We respond to the preached Word by singing a hymn together, a song that people sang before us and will continue to sing after us. We are united to the past, the present, and the future as we sing the songs of our faith together each Sunday.

  • Finally comes the sending; worship forms and shapes us to go into the world as the people of God. The benediction generally comes directly from Scripture and is connected to the sermon's application.

  • This is the final formal part of the service and creates space for prayer and reflection, as the organist plays a final song before we leave the sanctuary.

  • After our worship service, you are invited to join us on the patio for coffee, cookies, and (most importantly) fellowship! This is a great way to get to know some wonderful people in our church family.