Our Worship

 

Whether large or small, visiting a church can be a little intimidating; therefore, we have provided this page to help prepare you concerning what you can expect on a typical Sunday at Trinity.

Trinity is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). Age-wise, we are diverse covering many stages of life. On average, Sunday morning attendance is around 150 with several visitors joining us weekly.

Worship

Worship at Trinity begins at 9:30 a.m. and usually concludes by 10:45 am. In the service, we sing several songs and offer prayers of adoration, confess our sins, and commit verbally to God’s Kingdom extension in Murfreesboro and beyond. This is followed by listening to Scripture being read and preached, and the weekly celebration of the sacrament of Communion. Finally, we are sent out with the gracious embrace of our God to engage the world. The four parts that make up our service are: ENTERING GOD’S PRESENCE, COMMITTING TO GOD’S KINGDOM, LISTENING TO GOD’S WORD, and FEASTING AT GOD’S TABLE and GOING OUT WITH GOD'S BLESSING.

Worship of the true and living God is not something we initiate, it is something into which we are called. God always ‘makes the first move.’ This is true in creation; it is true in redemption and it is true for our worship. For in worship it is the Father who draws us to his Son in the power of his Spirit so that he might bless us with his good gifts of life, forgiveness, and peace. At his gracious call, we then gather to respond to him in adoration and gratitude.

Each Sunday, the first day of the week, the day Jesus came forth from the tomb, we gather as the people of God to be reassured of God’s commitment to us in his Son and to be renewed in his Spirit as we present our bodies to Him as living sacrifices (Rom. 12.2).

For this reason, corporate worship is central to our life as a congregation. For it’s on this day that we, as a community, enter into God’s presence to adore him in song, to be renewed through confession of our sins, to proclaim our trust in Jesus, to be instructed in the Scriptures, to feast at his table and then to be sent out with his blessing to bear the name of Jesus in the placed he’s planted us. For more information please see the ‘Our Liturgy’ link.


The two words that we would use to characterize our worship are Truth and Spirit. Regarding truth, our worship seeks to be God-centered and Gospel-Driven. It also seeks to be historically connected, recognizing that there is a long history of true and living worship that has preceded us and from which we can draw. For this reason, we make use of ancient hymns, creeds, and liturgical forms. And concerning Spirit, our worship must be performed and offered in the Spirit. At the same time it must seek to be contextual, that is, it must make use of current idioms, styles, and music arising from today. It also seeks to engage the whole person – heart, mind, and will.

Sermons

Preaching at Trinity is expositional, meaning that it seeks to proclaim and unfold the meaning and significance of the biblical text to engage the whole person. Sermons usually last between 30-35 minutes and are meant to show forth how God, through a particular passage of Scripture, reveals both our need for God’s grace and his provision of that grace in his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. In this way, the sermon seeks to be both Biblical and transformational. This is what we mean by the term Gospel-Driven…for if a sermon is not Gospel-Driven it is not biblical.