Worship at ARC

Worship at Amador Reformed Church

What a great privilege it is to worship the true and living God! If you visit
with us, you will be joining with us in the most important of all human
activities: the worship of the living God. It is our sincere hope and prayer
that you will find your worship experience to be encouraging, challenging,
and invigorating, renewing you in the knowledge of God and the wonderful
hope that we have through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Most of all, though,
we hope that God will be glorified by the worship we render to him. Drawing
upon the rich traditions of the historic Christian Church, worship at ARC is
characterized by reverence and joy, majesty and intimacy, the greatness
and grandeur of God and the mercy and compassion of God.

God-Centered

All too often worship is man-centered; that is, it is overly preoccupied with
our needs, and our feelings. But since the primary purpose of worship is to
give glory and honor to God, the most important thing that we could say
about our worship is that it is God-centered. What should be front and
center in Christian worship is the radiant and glorious character of the
triune God and the greatness of his redemptive work on behalf of sinners.
We worship God and enjoy the beginnings of our heavenly rest in him.
Because our worship is for him, it is marked by reverence and awe, order
and beauty, faith and joy. It is based completely on the Bible and God’s
promise of grace in Christ.

Trinitarian

Our worship is directed to the Father, through the mediation of the Son, in
the power of the Holy Spirit.

Dialogical

We see worship as a marvelous dialogue between God and his people. As
we move throughout the service, you will find it helpful to think of our
alternating between God’s speaking to us and our speaking to God. For
example, God speaks to us through the reading and preaching of the Word
and, and we respond to him in prayer, praise and song.

Objective

A common mistake is to evaluate worship purely in terms of our subjective
impressions and feelings. Thus, for many people, worship is good only
insofar as it makes them feel good. While not wishing to discount the
importance of our subjective response—indeed it is our hope that we will
be subjectively engaged in worship—we would suggest that worship is first
and foremost an activity, not a feeling. “What are we doing?” is thus a more
important question than, “How do we feel?”

Formal and Reverent

The Holy One of Israel, the Sovereign God of heaven, is not our buddy. He
is majestic and glorious, and we are to rejoice with trembling in his
presence. We believe that such a view of God is best encouraged by a
service characterized by form, reverence and solemn joy. We believe that
we are, week in and week out, promoting a view of God which is consistent
with the magnificence of his character revealed in Scripture.

Corporate and Participatory

To put it bluntly, worship is not a spectator sport; it is not entertainment.
Rather, it is an activity in which God’s people actively participate together
for the glory of God. We are called as co-participants—not spectators—in
the “drama” of the worship of God.

Committed to Church-Centered Families

We seek to include all ages in the entire life of the church. That means we
have our children in worship with us, and we seek to teach families how to
worship together.