About the Divine Service
The worship style at St. John Lutheran Church, Center Point is formal, reverent, and distinctively Lutheran. Our hope is that our worship style gives a witness and expression about our beliefs. While the main point of our worship is not solely to praise God, some of our worship does involve offering up sacrifices of prayer and praise to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Through the liturgy of the Church, God makes Himself present among us in a very real manner. God’s love is most clearly demonstrated when He distributes His gifts of Word and Sacrament in the Body and Blood of Christ in the Divine Service. Receiving these gifts is the true act of worship.
Formal
The Liturgy of the Church is formal. This means we follow a strict form and order of worship. We don’t create our own style of worship. Instead, we simply use what has been handed down to us by our Fathers in the faith.
Our form and order of worship, as well as our songs and hymnody, are taken from the Lutheran Service Book, the hymnal of our church.
Reverent
Our worship is not a show to be done in the sight of men. The point is not pomp and circumstance. Rather, the ceremonies we observe, such as standing, bowing, kneeling, making the sign of the cross, and the like, are driven directly by our conviction that God Himself is present in His risen Body and Blood for us, that He speaks in His Word and the Absolution, and that He is paying close attention to our prayers. Christ is truly present in our worship in order that He might comfort sinners.
Distinctively Lutheran
Some Lutherans in America have unfortunately taken up the identity of the dominant Protestant culture in America, or worse, the entertainment industry. At St. John Lutheran Church, we do not worship for the sake of entertaining others or to be entertained or to put on a rock concert for teenagers. Rather, we are fully committed to the Holy Scriptures, the Book of Concord, the study of the historic liturgy, and therefore receive our Historic Lutheran heritage, including ceremonies, as grateful recipients.