The First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone gathers each Sunday at 11:00 A.M. for worship. This time of prayer, praise, and proclamation is the center of all that we do as a congregation. We sing, we laugh, we share our joys and our concerns, we bring our offerings, and we hear God’s Word for our lives.

God welcomes all of us and turns strangers into friends, and we want to extend that welcome to anyone and everyone who joins us for worship. No one is singled out as a guest because ultimately we are all already friends and family in Christ.

Children are an important part of our community, including our worship! We have a space in the rear of the sanctuary where they can play quietly while parents still participate in the service. On the second and fourth Sundays of each month, they are welcome to spend the second half of the service in Sunday School to learn more about God’s love for them.

The service is centered around the Word of God in scripture and sermon, with most scripture readings taken from the Revised Common Lectionary. This coming week’s readings are available in text or audio form on the PCUSA website.

The music for our worship emerges out of the scripture we read. We sing all sorts of different things: traditional hymns, modern songs, settings of the Psalms, and other things that fit our life together. Our gifted musician Julie Suh enriches our worship with piano and organ music, and we often include other special music in our worship.

While our worship is relatively informal (you certainly don’t have to wear a skirt or a coat and tie!), we do have a bit of structure to what we do on Sundays. Our weekly bulletin includes most of what is needed to follow along, with appropriate pointers to our Bibles and hymnals for more information. Most weeks, you’ll find our service looking something like this:

• Gathering Around the Word: setting this gathering apart from the world with a song of praise, prayer of confession, and time of sharing the peace
• Proclaiming the Word: reading scripture and proclaiming the Word in the sermon
• Responding to the Word: beginning our response to the Word by affirming our faith, offering prayers for our world and ourselves, and offering our gifts to God
• Sealing the Word: sealing the Word upon our hearts and our lives through the sacraments of the Lord's Supper (monthly, on the first Sunday of each month, and weekly for the seven weeks after Easter) and Baptism (on occasion)
• Bearing and Following the Word into the World: setting out back into the world and carrying the Word along with us

After worship, all are invited to join us for a time of refreshments and fellowship. 

For more information on this coming week’s service,  check our monthly newsletter, The Monthly Lift for additional details.