The Lord's Day Community

Lord's Day Activities - Bible Classes

Our day begins with a general opening for those who wish to take part in our Lord's Day Bible Classes. In this opening, we spend thirty mintues singing Psalms and hymns. We use this time to work on four part harmony singing, and for learning new songs.

We then dismiss to our individual classes. There are currently several adult classes, and seven age-graded classes for children. We are writing our own curriculum for the children's classes. Our goal is to equip them with a good working knowledge of each book of the Bible, and set this education in the context of worship and character training.

Lord's Day Activities - Preaching

We then move to our formal worship service. This service can be thought of in two parts - preaching and communion. We have strong exegetical preaching from God's Word in the context of worship that we have tried to pattern after Biblical models. Pastor Dennis Tuuri is currently preaching through Hebrews. We think you'll find the preaching contains a strong dose of Biblical teaching, mixed with exhortations to action, and the comfort of the Gospel. We strongly encourage the congregation to be "noble Bereans" and therefore we provide a time of questions and discussion about the sermon after our worship service. 

Lord's Day Activities - Love Feast

After this time of worship, preaching, communion, and congregational discussion of the sermon, we move to our Agape, or Love Feast (see Jude 1:12). Those who wish to stay gather to eat and rejoice. Such "agapes" were a regular part of first century worship day. The meal also helps those who come from far away to be freed from the need to rush home with hungry children. Those in need are encouraged to take leftover food, reminding us that the "love" in our love feast includes a need to help those in economic distress. We have found our weekly meal to be a great time of encouragement and joy with each other in the Lord. Our children, most of whom are home schooled, particularly enjoy the fellowship that this portion of our worship day provides. There is always time for recreation and playing together as the meal is being prepared. After the meal, we have a time of announcements. We conclude the announcement time by singing to those with birthdays or anniversaries in the coming week, then dismiss with praise to God and prayer.

Lord's Day Activities - Fellowship and Recreation

We have focused on God's Enscriptured Word (the preaching portion of the worship service), God's Incarnate Word (the Lord's Supper) and spent time with God's people  at the Agape or Love Feast. But some of us just don't want to go home yet! So some spend another couple of hours just fellowshiping together. Biblical evidence from Old Testament worship patterns seems to show that fellowship and recreation accompanied the special times of week-long worship at Jerusalem. These festivals find their fulfillment in the Lord's Day. So many of our families stay and engage in various recreational activities after our formal worship day is over, enjoying each other's company. Again, our children dearly love the opportunity to fellowship and play together.

Lord's Day Activities - Summary

We are joyous over what God has done in maturing us in Biblical worship patterns and observance of our Lord's special Day. We love the God-centered worship we participate in, the strong Biblical preaching we hear, and the opportunity to engage in congregational discussion of the sermon. We are thankful that we can participate in the Lord's Supper weekly. We delight to eat a meal with the friends of the King of Kings. This meal requires some preparation on Saturday. Yet it also frees us from having to go home after church and prepare food on what is to be a day of rest. We greatly rejoice in the fellowship and recreational opportunities that the "day of convocation" brings with it. But all of this must be taken into the other six days of the week, so we'll spend a little time describing how we do this.

RCC Community Life

Local Area Fellowship Activities

We have no Sunday evening service at RCC. But we do have local monthly prayer meetings, each in a different part of the Greater Portland area. This helps provide a sense of community. Like our worship, these prayer meetings are also family affairs, with children present. Both adults and children share their prayer requests and pray for others. We also have various other times of fellowship and study during the week. These small group studies in local areas encourage community.

Church-wide Fellowship Activities

We are known to use any opportunity to fellowship! Even at our congregational business meetings, held two or three times a year, whole families are encouraged to come. We also have our own home school support group, with field trips, etc. Each year, we have an Advancement ceremony, where we provide an opportunity to recognize our children's educational advancement. These are times of rejoicing and fellowship.

We have several other special days and evenings throughout the year. For over twenty years we have celebrated Reformation Day on October 31st, instead of Halloween. It was on October 31, 1517 that Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 Theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg, declaring justification by faith alone. Stepping back in time, we dress up in Reformation costumes, and have an evening filled with merriment as we remind ourselves about the great truths and historical acts of the Reformation. We play games, do skits, and rejoice in God's providential acts in history.

Summer usually sees a church-wide picnic or two, and always includes RCC's week-long Family Camp. We begin the Fall with an outdoor Festus Dei (festival of God) party in August or September, celebrating God's harvest with good food and music. We give thanks to God for the maturation of our own Christian lives, and pray for the continuing harvest of evangelism as well.

Mothers find much encouragement at RCC, first through the love our body has for children. We celebrate the birth of all children, seeing them as a great blessing from God. We have showers for all the new blessings. We provide meals for recuperating moms and during other times of need. On Sundays, we all look out after the children, knowing that no parent is omnipresent.

Conclusion

We hope this brief overview gives you some idea of the distinctive character of RCC. We begin each week with a focus on the worship of God and the resultant family and Christian community based fellowship and joy that come from such an emphasis. We then move on into the week having our world view formed by God's Word. We lead our families in worship. We take a strong sense of vocational calling into the work place. We see all of our activities, recreation, work, home, politics, etc., as under the dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ. We trust the Spirit to write His Word upon our hearts as we spend time together praying, studying and rejoicing in the blessings given to us on the basis of Jesus' work. Please feel free to visit with us during any portion of our worship day, or for all of it. We would love to meet with you, and answer any questions you may have.