Come as you are, Sundays at 10am
Welcome in advance to College Park Covenant! We are a church family seeking to follow Jesus, care for each other, and transform lives. We pray you will develop significant friendships among us and find a sense of belonging, rooted in God’s incredible hospitality.
If you can' t make it in person, here's the link to our YouTube channel where we'll live stream at 10:00am on Sunday: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvfcHZsKOCW9C2HFexwzVVQ/
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness...
give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever.
—from Psalm 100
What To Expect
Worship Services are on Sundays from 10:00am til about 11:15 at 909 Acadia Drive. We warmly invite you to join us!
We gather to re-tell God’s story and be rooted in it. We worship God, sing together, read Scripture and talk about what God’s word means for our actual lives. We pray for one another, for our world, and we listen for Jesus’s voice. You can hear Pastor Kirsten’s teaching on our Sermon Podcast.
Kids
We have a nursery with childcare for kids 0-3, and Jr. Church during the second part of the service for kids 4-9. During July and August Junior Church kids remain in the service to practice participating in prayer time and listening to the pastors' Bible teaching, plus we have colouring sheets and activities available, too. Our kids often help to lead us in worship by waving colourful flags during our opening songs. Our enthusiastic volunteers working with children have been screened through our 'Plan to Protect' program. Learn more about College Park Kids.
You Belong
Don't worry, if you're a newcomer, you won't be forced to introduce yourself publicly and we won't sing you an awkward welcome song. A couple of our folks will probably say hello to introduce themselves and say that we're glad you came.
Throughout the week we try to do life together, paying attention to Jesus in our lives and joining his work in our community. Come with us as we anticipate that God will change world as he changes us!
Prayer
After the service there are people available to pray with you. Ask a pastor or one of our leaders if you would like prayer. There is also a prayer room off the left side of the worship space. To request prayer, contact the office to talk with a pastor, or read more about our prayer chain.
Giving
Giving joyfully and sacrificially is a part of our worship service every Sunday. As a visitor who does not yet call College Park Covenant your church home, please do not feel obligated to give financially. Read more about giving.
Communion
We celebrate Communion (also called the Lord’s Supper or the Eucharist) every first Sunday of the month, as part of our worship service. The bread and wine or grape juice symbolize the body and blood of Christ who died for us. If you are following Jesus, we encourage you to partake with us as we remember Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, the giving of God’s Spirit, and we look forward to his return, bringing heaven to earth
Soup & Sandwich Sundays & Summer BBQs
On most first Sundays of the month, stick around after worship for a simple sandwich lunch or homemade soup and buns. It’s an extension of the Lord’s Supper, a way for us to sit together around a meal in Jesus’ presence, embrace new friends and connect with one another. In the summer we invite the neighbourhood to join us on the lawn for hamburgers and hotdogs, with a bouncy-castle for kids!
What Is Worship?
As God made us to need food and water and warmth, God also made us for thanksgiving, praise, reverence, and awe. And like it is God’s nature to overflow with blessing to the world, God created us in God's image to respond back in overflowing expressions of blessing. We seek to make worship central in our life together.
Worship means learning to recognize God’s goodness while delighting to deepen in our responses. It means purposing together, as individuals and as a community, to unite our actions, intentions, and emotions in loving response to God. And while we gather as a community on Sundays, we are invited to worship God everyday, in the midst of every facet of life.
There are many languages of worship, a vast range of expressions which give voice to our responses to God. In our corporate worship we draw on the historic liturgical traditions of the Church and the passionate innovation of more recent charismatic movements. We aim to create a hospitable space for each person to feel free to worship, engaging all of our senses, with our minds and hearts alive in response to God. However, the fruit that our worshipping grows for Jesus’ kingdom is of greater significance than our personal enjoyment.
“More important that whether something is old or new, winsome or classic is whether it is real. The Scriptures tell us to ‘test the spirits,’ and the true test of the spirit of a thing is whether it moves us closer to God and to our suffering neighbour. Does it have fruit outside of our own good feelings? Beauty [or the public art and poetry of worship] must hearken to something beyond us. It should cause us to do something beautiful for God in the world.” —Common Prayer: A Liturgy For Ordinary Radicals
Baptism & Dedication
At College Park we celebrate the historic diversity of the body of Christ and recognize both practices of believer and infant baptism in our community. In either case, our pastors offer classes or a series of intentional conversations to prepare those wanting to be baptized, or to have their child baptized.
For the believer, baptism is an outward sign of an inward reality that we have turned from the old life of sin to a new life in Jesus’ kingdom; that we are publicly identifying with Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection; and that we are openly joining those who follow Jesus Christ. We also offer a ceremony to re-affirm one's baptismal vows.
When parents bring their child for baptism, they acknowledge in the sacrament, God’s promise and the unmerited gift of God’s redeeming grace. Its emphasis is not on our response, but on what God has already graciously done for us through Jesus Christ.
See our College Park Kids page for more about infant baptism and child dedication, or read the Covenant’s statement on baptism here.