Concerning Children's and Youth Groups

On November 11, 2011, Wayne Rice, one of the founders of the largest, most influential student ministry organization, Youth Specialties, confessed: “We got what we wanted. We turned youth ministry into the toy department of the church. Churches now hire professionals to lead youth ministry. We got relevance but we created a generation of teenagers who are a mile wide and are an inch deep.”

Statistics have been showing us for years that we have a real problem when it comes to our youth and their commitment to the church when they are out on their own. One latest poll...

When Do We Observe the Lord's Supper

Please refer to the sermon “Why We Do What We Do: The Lord’s Supper” by Drew Grumbles for an explanation of our doctrinal stance on why we partake of the Supper and who should be included.

Historically, the Lord’s Supper has been the focal point for a local church body to both celebrate the unity of its members in their common faith and commitment to one another, and for the church to practice church discipline. Seeing the value and benefit of this practice, our observance of the Lord’s Supper is reserved for the members of our church and is conducted...

Why Do We Think Membership Is Important?

To be a member of a church is to make a public promise to live according to the Word and to support the work of the congregation. In the Bible this is called a covenant. Every believer is part of the church as organism (the Spiritual Body of Christ), but only by a public promise can you be part of the church as organization. A public promise, or covenant, is the basis for all society, according to the Bible: marriage, employment, citizenship, church membership, etc., are all relationships of accountability.

Membership in a church is not like membership in a...

Why Do We Organize the Service the Way We Do?

As explained in “Is Style A Matter of Preference?”, we do what we do for a reason- not to be the most flashy or entertaining, but to bring glory to God. This being the case, we are less concerned with being “cool” as we are with ordering our services in a way which seems to us to reflect most accurately the examples given to us in the Bible of what true worship should involve.

That being said, our morning worship service typically follows the following pattern:

The Invocation or Call to Worship A Prayer of Confession and Assurance of Pardon...

Is Style a Matter of Preference?

At Ekklesia, we do not believe that the structure and content of a worship service is simply a matter of preference.

While there is no one particular form that we can point to as being the only form for genuine worship, we do believe that there are some forms which are better than others at being faithful to what God has called for in our worship of Him.

We take warning from the story of Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu found in Leviticus chapter 10. They had just been installed as priests and took it upon themselves to offer burnt...

What is Corporate Worship For?

In other words, why do we gather on Sunday mornings in the first place?

Various people may answer in various ways, but to get at the answer we cannot simply take a poll, we have to look to see what the Bible says.

And what we find is Paul speaking to the Christians in Corinth concerning their weekly gathering saying, “So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church” (1 Cor. 14:12). And again, more explicitly, “What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a...