Weekly Order of Service

An important part of our meeting together each Sabbath is to greet each other. This carries on the fellowship from the Sabbath School lesson, and gets us to welcome each other into God's Holy worship.

Each week one of our congregation, or a singing group will come to the front and announce various hymns, which will be sung by the Hymnal leader, the singing group (where supplied) and the congregation. We aim to raise the roof for the glory of God each week. We observe each week to include a Sabbath hymn.

All those who are able should stand... To allow us to commence the rest of our service, we call our congregation to join together in singing the introit song (currently SDA Hymn 495: Near to the Heart of God (1^st Verse & Chorus). This is closely followed by a word of prayer by our preacher for the day.

It's a very important item to welcome the congregation, particularly where we have visitors or new members. This gives an opportunity to introduce new attendees to our church, and to ensure we encourage them to visit again. Announcements are given by our dedicated church clerk, who informs us about upcoming events, changes made to the church order of service or decisions made by the church board, and of course safety information for our people to follow during their time inside the church grounds.

All those who are able should stand... The opening hymn is a key part of our service, and is one from the SDA hymn book that has been selected by our preacher for the day. It usually relates to some content in their sermon; sometimes describing what the whole sermon is about.

There are two very important aspects to the sharing time, and this creates a dialogue to encourage all members of the congregation to participate by:

1. Sharing their testimony with the church on how God has helped them during the week

2. Reciting together Bible verses to aid memory. This is based on the premise that Christians may not always have access to their Bibles.

We have just committed to memory and finished reciting Matthew 5:1-12 - the Beatitudes.

The reading of the scripture (usually a verse or two) is normally requested from a young person in the congregation; this reinforces the message that is to be given in the following sermon.

We collect offerings from our congregation, should they be in a position to contribute. We also have an announcement of the church bank details to enable those who can't contribute on the day to do a bank transfer if they want to do this. We collect for the furtherance of the Seventh-day Adventist church, and to provide essential funds for the hire an upkeep of our church meetings, or to contribute to other worthy causes as agreed by our congregation. We sing SDA Hymn 195: Showers Of Blessing until the collection is complete.

The Garden of Prayer is performed during the divine service by a volunteer from the congregation. This is a welcome part of the service, that allows us to profess our faith, praise our LORD and give thanks to Him for our church. It's also an opportunity to collect prayer requests from the congregation, so that supplication can be made on their behalf, for their families, friends and neighbours. During this part of the service, those who are able are invited to kneel for prayer, and prior to the prayer we sing SDA Hymn 312: Near the Cross (first verse and chorus), and singing SDA Hymn 684 Hear our Prayer O Lord.

An important event every Sabbath is to include the younger people of the congregation, to address them particularly with an interesting story that can be in the form of a parable, or other type of participative activity. In the unfortunate absence of a children's story reader on any particular Sabbath, we revert to our Adventist Gracelink channel to find a short animated video presenting a biblical story. Gracelink is targeted at children aged 3 - 9, but even the adults enjoy watching.

Sometimes this is not used, but is open to the preacher to decide if any extra music / hymn or other special item should be presented prior to their sermon. Usually a special item is introduced to allow children to recite from the Bible, or to sing a special tribute to God.

The sermon allows whichever preacher we have on the day to share their message of the Gospel, or to bring to life some events from the old Testament. This is where many important lessons are learned. The sermon normally lasts for 20 - 40 minutes, and allows us to ponder some of the important messages the Bible has for all of us.

The closing hymn is again one that has been chosen by the preacher, and is generally connected with the message of the sermon. Opening and closing hymns are different week after week, usually following the subject of the sermon being preached that week.

Following the closing hymn, the preacher conducts the final prayer of the day, where those who are able stand in thoughtful prayer. At the conclusion of the prayer, the congregation sings SDA Hymn 390 Dismiss us Lord. Following the hymn, the leader of the service reads Numbers 6:24-26.

We're not able to accommodate a meal following each service, but on every 13^th Sabbath, we get together to eat and spend time together. All are welcome to attend, although it's beneficial that everyone contributes some food items for the benefit of the lunch. We also refer to this event as a 'pot-luck'.