Scheduled Services
Worship and communion opportunities
Sunday worship, 8:30 and 11 a.m.
Summer schedule for worship: 10:30 a.m., one service only, begins Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend.
The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper
First Sunday of every month
Prayers for healing and wholeness
Wednesdays, noon, in the chapel
About our worship
Worship is the center of Christian life, and it is the center of Reid Memorial Presbyterian Church. Our greatest joy and delight is to worship the triune God, for there is no one who is more worthy of our love and adoration than the God who has revealed himself to us in Jesus Christ, and who has come to dwell in us through the Holy Spirit. We are never more aware of who we are, whose we are, what our purpose is, and what our destiny is than when we worship God. Although our motivation in worshipping God should not be selfish in any way, we are blessed immeasurably when we do it.
Our worship at Reid is solidly in the Reformed tradition, which has its origins in the 16th century Protestant Reformation, particularly with the movement associated with John Calvin. We, like all Reformed Churches, emphasize the reading and proclamation of scripture. We expect our pastors to put a lot of effort into their sermons, and we put a lot of effort into listening to their sermons.
Typical of Presbyterians, in our worship we love to comply with St. Paul's command to, "do things decently and in order" (I Cor 14:40), but at the same time, we want our worship to be alive to the Spirit. We want our worship to be dignified, and yet warm. Most of all, we want it to bring our praise to the God who has revealed himself in scripture, and we want it to bring God's paths and promises to us.
Many churches are experimenting today with what they call "contemporary services," and contrast them with what they call "traditional services." We believe that this language is imprecise and misleading, and therefore unhelpful. Contemporary and traditional are very relative terms. There are many forms of contemporary and there are many forms of tradition. We want our services to be both contemporary and traditional; contemporary in that they are alive to God's spirit today, traditional in that they are rooted in the universal Christian tradition, and particularly in the Reformed tradition.
In the sense, however, in which many churches today distinguish between "contemporary services" and "traditional services," our services are definitely traditional. Although we enjoy singing contemporary hymns, we treasure the hymns that have proven themselves to be classics over the years. They make up the greatest part of our hymn singing diet.
More significantly, our services are not designed to lift worshippers to a continual emotional high. This is deliberate. Although the Christian life is wonderful, it is not easy. Life is filled with many valleys as well as mountains. God has a good word for us in all of life, but we might still be weeping instead of laughing. We believe that our culture begs us to give simple answers to complex questions, and that we serve people most not with hyped-up entertainment that denies the wilderness experiences of life, but with a more restrained worship, which allows feelings of grief, failure, and abandonment to be expressed before God as well as joy and exuberance.
In worship we want to bring all of ourselves to God, so that all of ourselves can be healed and restored. We welcome you to worship with us.
