Two years of Public Worship Services

I recently remembered that it’s about two years since we commenced public worship services at Grace Presbyterian Church. We ‘officially’ started in about September 2021 when our church core group finally found a place to meet in, the Hadspen Memorial Centre.

I’m profoundly thankful to God for these past two years. Thinking back to when we first started, I’m struck with how many of the convictions regarding church and mission that we started with are still carried with us to this day.

We started out with a firm conviction that the public worship of God is the main thing that we should be focused on as a church. If you come along on a Sunday (and you’re very welcome to do so), you won’t find any flashy production, definitely no video, nor even any screen at all (we print the hymn lyrics on paper). Our services are simple: prayer, singing praise to God, scripture readings and preaching. Public worship is still the main part of our church’s life together, because we believe that it’s through prayer, word and fellowship, that Christ grows us as his people, and it’s the way people are brought into Jesus’ kingdom. We have been an ordinary means of grace church from the beginning and we’ve seen God bless this.

The majority of our sermons have been expository, going verse by verse through sections of the Bible. I think back fondly over the books we have studied together as a church. These include Micah, Jonah, Ephesians, sections in Genesis, a number of Psalms, and we’re about to restart in Mark’s Gospel in chapter 10.

We still, 2 years later, have a dedicated Christian education aspect on Sunday for adults and children which we call ‘Gospel Training’. This part of church life has been a real highlight for me. We’ve covered a variety of practical topics, including a recent great series of conversations about personal evangelism. The children are currently learning the New City Catechism together.

Across these two years, we’ve seen slow but steady growth in number, and we’re praying that this continues. We’re still focused on trying to reach the community with the gospel, we still are trying outreach ideas and events but in a more sustainable way than when we first started as a church. Importantly, we’ve seen people grow in their faith and in their love for each other, we’ve seen people walk with Jesus through difficult days, and we’ve seen people come to know Christ. We praying that we’ll be like a city on a hill, a spark of light shining Christ into a dark world.

Personally, the last couple of years have been exhausting, fun, head scratching, hard but joy filled work. I feel older than when I first started, but perhaps more experience is beneficial. It’s certainly only by the grace of God that our church exists. However, it’s been a huge privilege to serve with Grace P.C along the way.