This is an exhortation for both this Lord’s Day and the next. As you know, we rejoice that we have a sister church here in Moscow, Trinity Reformed Church, and we are kept mindful of that fact on a regular basis—we worship together a number of times throughout the year, and it is a great blessing to do so. Now up to this point, for practical reasons, we have always followed the Christ Church liturgy during these joint services. But this next Lord’s Day, we will be following the Trinity liturgy. In short, the worship time and place will be ours, but all of us will be visiting our sister church next Sunday.
Now the structure of their service is the same as ours—we both follow what is called a covenant renewal pattern of worship. But there are some details that are different. The church office has already sent out an electronic copy of the Trinity order of worship, and we will do so again this week. We would like to ask you to go over this in your families to take note of these differences.
The first reason for doing so is obvious. If you trip over a chair during their passing of the peace, you will embarrass your entire family.
The second reason is that it is good to learn how to be a guest in a church with customs of worship that are different from what you are used to. It is fine if you prefer what we do, but it not fine to compare what we do to what they do in any spirit of vainglory. We are all going to be guests next Sunday, so don’t be a rude one.
A third reason is related to this. Some of what they do at Trinity you can expect to see at some point here at Christ Church. But there are other elements where we are quite content with what we do. You are not being a rude guest if you give the elders your input on such things—your views on which should be which—so long as it is with an open Bible. The elders invite all such input.