Expectations During Service
All our services begin with music followed by weekly Announcements and a Welcoming message from a member of the Board of Trustees. This is followed by our Call to Worship, Chalice Lighting and then we stand to say our Covenant together. While still standing we will sing our first hymn. Next is our offertory or collection, we do this early in the service so that our children learn stewardship.
Next is our Time For All Ages, this is a popular part of our service that truly is a lesson for all of us. Then we sing our children off to their classrooms. Music is dispersed throughout our worship service, it is woven around our Reading, Prayer *, and Sermon. We sing our closing hymn and hear Benediction. We close with a postlude.
* Prior to our service starting you are welcome and invited to come forward and lite a candle of a joy or concern you may be holding in your heart. Also there are index cards available if you wish to write these joys or concerns down. Please print and please be brief then leave the card on the minister’s hymnal so it may be included in our pastoral prayer. We begin our time of prayer the a sharing of our Joys & Concerns. We ask a respectful tone that would exclude comments of a political nature or announcements of up coming events. Joys and concerns are best when spoken from the heart.
All services at the Ahavas building are served by a T-coil hearing loop. Users should set their hearing aids to the setting marked “T” just prior to the service.
A Mindful Request: a reminder that some folks attending worship or other gatherings have strong physical reactions to fragrances and strongly scented products. These reactions can range from airways closing, to migraines, and some epileptics can react with having a seizure. None of us intentionally want to cause any of these reactions. So a kind reminder to give your perfumes and colognes a Sabbath Day. Let’s create a scent free zone for everyone.