What Is the Worship Service Like at Grace Chicago?
Weekly Sunday Service
We meet each Sunday at 11:00 a.m. The service includes singing, prayer, teaching, and the sacrament of communion. The meeting usually lasts about an hour, but people always show up early and hang around afterward. Be sure to come early so you can get your coffee fix before everything gets started. Doors open by 10:30 a.m. at the latest.
Sunday Service Location:
Holy Trinity High School
The Service as a Whole
The Grace Chicago Sunday church service intentionally follows a narrative movement. Each week the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is retold a different way, and those who follow Jesus in faith and repentance meet the risen Lord in the sacrament of communion. The liturgy (order of worship) leading up to communion is anticipatory; in other words, what precedes communion points toward the sacrament of communion as a symbol of Jesus’ redemptive work in history. The conclusion of the service then directs us toward fully experiencing God’s grace.
As a church community we observe the Christian year with its seasons of Advent, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter. We do this to help each other remember the redemptive rhythm of God’s presence in our lives. In any given day we metaphorically travel through these seasons as we grapple with grief, doubt, and temptation, and also celebrate joy and hope.
The Communication of the Gospel
Central to each worship service—and to everything we do at Grace Chicago—is the communication of the Gospel. The gospel is the good news that God has intervened in world history through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in order to forgive and defeat human sin, vanquish evil in every form, and replace death with life through the power of Jesus’ resurrection. Because the Gospel is God’s revelation of Himself and His redemptive mission in Jesus Christ, it provides the true way to view ourselves, our friends, our communities, and this world.*
The Music
Our musical director, James Falzone, leads a consort of gifted professional musicians. An accomplished composer, James regularly writes and arranges new songs, and as a trained improviser, he often conducts spontaneously. Drawn from eclectic styles and traditions, the music weaves together the weekly mood and content of the Scripture readings, the homily (lesson), and other spoken words.
How Often Does Grace Chicago Have Communion?
We participate in the sacrament of communion during our weekly Sunday service, so that experiencing the presence of Christ through communion becomes every service’s focal point. Like the early church centuries ago, we believe that in this way we will be constantly reminded of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and renewed in God’s love and grace in our lives.**
*In the marketplace of ideas we can think of ourselves, our world, and spiritual or religious truth in many ways. The gospel of Jesus Christ tells us the truth about ourselves: We are neither autonomous beings free to choose our own destinies, nor are we impersonal masses of atoms careening toward either an uncertain future or annihilation. We are made in God’s image and are intended to reflect His character in our own. Tragically, we are incapable of fully reflecting God’s character because of our propensity to embrace sin and evil. Happily, God offers us the character of His Son, Jesus. As we follow Him in faith and repentance, God’s grace transforms us so we begin to reflect God’s character more consistently in our unique personalities.
**While all Christian churches celebrate communion, Christians do not uniformly agree about how often the Lord’s supper should be observed. Nor is there universal agreement with regard to the spiritual dynamics that occur between the communicant and the risen Lord. Our view (essentially that of the Presbyterian, Reformed, and Anglican denominations) is that Jesus gives Himself spiritually to each one who receives Him in faith and repentance.
© 2010 Grace Chicago Church