The Hills Church : Glorifying God through Transformed Lives

Corporate Worship

We gather each Sunday to worship together corporately. As followers of Christ, We see the entire corporate worship service as worship in which we are all called by our Lord to gather together to glorify God and be more and more transformed into the image of Christ. Foundational to this is the Word of God, so you will find that our services are guided by and filled with Scripture. Below you will find the why we believe gathering together for corporate worship is essential, key elements that make up our corporate worship service as well as the key markers we use to help guide us in directing our hearts and minds on how we worship.

Why We Worship Together

Glorify God Together

Become Like Christ Together

As we engage in corporate worship together,  our primary aim and goal is to bring Glory to God.

Rom 15:5-7
And we bring glory to God as we become more like Christ both individually and collectively.

Rom 15:2-4

Key Elements of Corporate Worship

We seek to incorporate each of these key elements in our corporate worship services.
Five of them we incorporate each week in our Sunday Corporate Worship service: The Bible, Prayer, Praise, Preaching, and Participation.
The sixth, Ordinances, we incorporate on an occasional but regular basis.

The Bible

As a people who seek to glorifying our God by growing more and more into the likeness of our Lord, we seek to submit ourselves to the Word of God. Thus, we seek to hear from God by listening and proclaiming His word.

1 Tim 4:13 | 2 Tim 3:16 | Heb 4:12

Prayer

In prayer we express our dependency and need for God. We call to Him for His provision and thank Him for who He is and His goodness to us.

Matt 21:13 | Luke 11:1 | Phil 4:6

Praise

Singing allows us to corporately confess together and to each other what we believe is true and how it deepens our affections for God.

Eph 5:19 | Col 3:16 | Psa 149:1

Preaching

In preaching we hear the Word of God proclaimed so that we might be transformed by it and glorify God in submitting to it.

2 Tim 4:2 | Acts 17:11

Participation

We believe that corporate worship means corporate participation. Corporate worship is not for performance and spectating but involvement and participation. Thus, we seek so that the body participates in the worship service through corporate reading of Scripture, corporate prayer, singing, and actively listening to the preaching.

Acts 2:42 | Heb 10:24-25

Ordinances

Christ commanded for us to follow two ordinances as a church: Baptism and the Lord's Supper. When new believers place their faith in Christ, we baptize them in one of our corporate worship services so that in their baptism we corporate confess in our witnessing that the new believer is now one of us, a follower of Christ.  And we celebrate the Lord's Supper, taking the elements of the bread and the cup together, quarterly to proclaim together our Lord's death until He comes.

Matt 28:19-20 | Luke 22:14-21 | 1 Cor 11:23-26

Markers of Corporate Worship

These are five markers we seek to see and achieve in our corporate worship.
These markers serve as guidelines to help us evaluate are we carrying out our corporate worship as God would have us.

God-Centered

Corporate worship should be God-centered, bring focus and expressing the preeminent value, worth, and treasuring of God.
Matt 22:37 | Eph 1:5-6

Christ-Exalting

Corporate worship is to be Christ-centered as being Christian means we are followers of Christ as our Lord and seek to become more and more like Him.
Rom 8:28-29 | 2 Cor 3:18 | Eph 4:13 | Phil 2:9-11

Biblically-Grounded

Corporate worship must be Biblically-grounded and guided as the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God and is utterly sufficient and the final authority for all matters of faith and godliness.
John 4:23-24 | 2 Tim 3:16-17

Gospel-Saturated

Corporate worship should also be Gospel-saturated, expressing and telling the truths of the gospel through spoken word, song, and prayer so that our lives are shaped by the gospel.
Col 3:15-17 | 2 Cor 5:21 | 1 Pet 2:24; 3:18

Spirit-Empowered

Corporate worship should also be Gospel-saturated, expressing and telling the truths of the gospel through spoken word, song, and prayer.
John 4:23-24 | Rom 8:13-17