"Worship According To Historic Liturgy"
Worship at Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church is according to the church's historic Liturgy. The Liturgy is that Divine event by which God in Christ is present with His church constituting and sustaining her by word and sacrament in the New Testament reality of His shed blood. The Liturgy's content is Jesus Christ, Savior and Redeemer, and is therefore an ongoing necessity, not only for the life of the church, but also for the life of the world.
In this Worship, we at Grace stand against an incipient "contemporary worship", which seeks to infuse the popular culture and secular music forms into the historic Liturgy of the church. The serious problem with a "contemporary worship" is its accommodation to the world's values. One must ask, whether the connoted emotional messages of rock, jazz, folk, barbershop, heavy metal or vacuous "praise and worship" music compliment or compete with the gospel's message of the forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake? Insertion of these worldly pop forms detracts from and reduces the significance of the Liturgy's gospel essence.
The church is the great sign of God's grace in the world. As such she is called to be "salt and light" and thus, by nature, is "counter-culture"; rhetorically expressed by the western church father, Tertullian, "What has Jerusalem to do with Athens?" At Grace, our Worship is ordered in The Lutheran Hymnal where we join with the church throughout the ages responding to God's gracious, abiding word by the church's sung confession of faith.
By her Liturgy, the holy Christian church participates in the gospel mysteries (1 Corinthians 4:1) of Christ present for the forgiveness of our sins by whose shed blood we continue as children of God able to approach our heavenly Father in the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Liturgy is called "The Divine Service". Implicit in this name is the church's comprehension that true Worship occurs in the reality of God's grace alone, that is, Christian worship occurs precisely in our receiving, by faith, that forgiveness which Christ has won and wrought on the cross and extends in His resurrection and ascended glory.
It is Christ, by his word and by his sacraments (the Word with the water of Holy Baptism and Present in and with the bread and wine of the Holy Supper), Who establishes us to be new creation, holy people, royal priesthood, spotless bride. By the power of the Holy Spirit we stand one in Christ to the glory of God the Father almighty.
Accordingly, we at Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church are committed to this great and wonderful Worship, where from Sunday to Sunday we gather, with the all the saints throughout the ages, around God in Christ with us by His word purely preached and His Sacrament rightly administered. In Jesus' Name we at Grace extend to all who would hear and desire instruction according to Scripture this same glorious invitation to Worship according to the church's historic Liturgy.
+Pastor Mills
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Today's News/Announcements
Worship Schedule
Sundays:
Sunday School and Adult Bible Study: September - May
9:40a.m.- 10:20a.m.
Divine Service with Holy Communion: 10:30a.m.
Thanksgiving Eve Service: Wednesday, November 26th at 7:00p.m., Vespers
Council Meeting: Monday, December 1st at 7:30p.m.
Midweek Advent: Wednesday, December 3rd. Dinner at 6:00p.m. Vespers Service at 7:00p.m.
Altar Circle Christmas Luncheon December 4th at 12:30p.m.
Children's Christmas Program: Thursday, December 11th at 7:00p.m.
Christmas Eve Service: Wednesday, December 24th at 10:30p.m. - Communion
Christmas Day Service: Thursday, December 25th at 10:30a.m. - Communion
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989 North Portage Path
Akron, OH 44313
TEL: 330.864.4244 FAX: 330.864.4448
www.grace-lcms.org
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