Join us for the LIVE on stage performance of the musical setting of Charles Dickens' beloved Christmas classic.

Click here to get tickets now.

Sunday's anthem: A hymn for our time

"The Church Victorious" by John Carter

Sunday's anthem melds texts from Paul's letter to the Ephesians with three stanzas from the historic hymn, "The Church's One Foundation." The Rev. Samuel John Stone penned this hymn in the late 19th century (published in 1866) during a time of great upheaval within the church. Scholars questioned the authority of the Scriptures and their historical integrity. Rev. Stone opposed these departures. Also concerned with the meaningless recitation of the Apostles' Creed, he wrote a series of 12 hymns, each explaining a part of the creed and affirming the inspiration of Scripture.

"The Church's One Foundation" supports the ninth article of the creed: "I believe in the Holy Catholic (universal) church, the communion of the saints." We see references to the church's controversy in stanza 3, "Though there be those that hate her, and false sons in her pale" and stanza 4, "With a scornful wonder, men see her sore oppressed, by schisms rent asunder by heresies distressed."

Last Lord's Day we sang stanzas 1-4 of the hymn. This Sunday's anthem incorporates stanzas 1, 5 and 6. The congregation will join the choir at those points.

Knowing the hymn's roots helps us sing with deeper conviction and gratitude. May we honor Christ in our worship this and every Lord's Day.

Wise Words on Worship

John Piper once wrote this article describing his guiding principles in worship. I'd love to hear your comments in response.


What Is the Philosophy of
Worship that Unites Us?


· God-centeredness: A high priority of the vertical focus of our Sunday morning service. The ultimate aim is to so experience God that he is glorified in our affections.

· Expecting the powerful presence of God: We do not just direct ourselves toward him. We earnestly seek his drawing near according to the promise of James 4:8. We believe that in worship God draws near to us in power, and makes himself known and felt for our good and for the salvation of unbelievers in the midst.

· Bible based and Bible saturated: The content of our singing and praying and welcoming and preaching and poetry will always conform to the truth of Scripture. The content of God’s Word will be woven through all we do in worship and will be the ground of all our appeal to authority.

· Head and heart: Worship that aims at kindling and carrying deep, strong, real emotions toward God, but does not manipulate people’s emotions by failing to appeal to clear thinking about spiritual things based on shareable evidences outside ourselves.

· Earnestness and intensity: Avoiding a trite, flippant, superficial, frivolous atmosphere, but instead setting an example of reverence and passion and wonder.

· Authentic communication: The utter renunciation of all sham and deceit and hypocrisy and pretense and affectation and posturing. Not the atmosphere of artistic or oratorical performance but the atmosphere of a radically personal encounter with God truth.

· The manifestation of God and the common good: We expect and hope and pray (according to 1 Cor. 12:7) that our focus on the manifesting of God is good for people and that therefore a spirit of love for each other is not incompatible with, but necessary to authentic worship.

· Undistracting excellence: We will try to sing and play and pray and preach in such a way that people’s attention will not be diverted from the substance by shoddy ministry nor by excessive finesse, elegance or refinement. Natural, undistracting excellence will let the truth and beauty of God shine through.

· The mingling of historic and contemporary music: And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Matt. 13:52).

By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

What shapes our worship?

Worship does truth. The ancient church captured how worship does truth in the phrase lex orandi; lex credendi; est. [One] way to state the essence of this Latin phrase is to say, “Show me how you worship and I’ll show you what you believe.” If how we worship shapes what we believe, then it is imperative that we pay attention to how we worship. If worship is shaped by culture, it will result in a culturally conditioned faith. If worship is shaped by narcissism, it will result it a me-oriented consumer faith.

---Robert E. Webber, Ancient-Future Worship: Proclaiming and Enacting God’s Narrative. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008), 104.