Worship

When we gather for worship on Sunday mornings, we experience an encounter with God through Jesus Christ, who reveals himself through Scripture and proclamation and guides our response to the Father. A worship service is a divine-human dialogue that seizes us into the inner life of the Triune God, in whom everlasting life is relished. 

Corporate worship is also the central act of becoming the body of Christ, for it is through worship that we are drawn into a common story of redemption and new creation. 

These two movements – divine encounter and transformation – are facilitated by the practices of gathering, praying, singing, proclaiming, hearing, and sacraments. Through these rituals we give thanks to God, offer adoration to God, beseech God’s mercy and guidance, and encourage each other to live faithfully under the reign of Christ.

Worship at PHBC is “traditional” in the sense that we consult the church’s historic memory, which is why we rehearse the Christian story as it’s told (or sung!) through hymnody. There’s just something amazing about a hymn that burrows deep into your bones until you know it by heart. Choral anthems, often accompanied by organ or piano, are a hallmark of our worship experience, and our hand bell choir is another PHBC staple. We also draw our Scripture lessons from a three-year cyclical listing known as the lectionary, and we follow the pattern of the church year beginning with Advent and Christmas and continuing through the season of Pentecost.

But there’s plenty of room within our traditional modes of worship for creativity and innovation. As we like to say at PHBC: Tradition is the living faith of the dead, but traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. We try to employ the vibrant elements of our tradition rather than maintaining the stagnate forms of traditionalism. Come and see for yourself!