What to Expect on Sunday
Culture
Our services are a special time spent in music and God’s Word. Greeters will welcome you on your way in and ushers will provide you with a bulletin and can help you find a seat. If you’re new to MABC, be sure to fill out a Contact Card and place it in the offering box located at the back of the auditorium. We’d love to get to know you more and answer any questions you may have.
Our service starts at 10:30 am. It usually runs about an hour and fifteen minutes. Our nursery (0-3) opens at 10:15 am. Children (JK-Grade 5) are dismissed from the service just before the sermon to attend Children’s Church and can be picked up at the close of each service. Prior to the service, sign in your children at a one of our check-in kiosks on the upper and lower levels. (Please note that during the summer months, our Children’s Church Program is for children JK-Grade 2.)
Our Sunday mornings feel a bit like a family reunion. There are kids of all ages running around, young and old interacting, and an eagerness to linger and visit. There is usually a crowd of people still visiting forty-five minutes after the service has ended. We do not have a dress code; you’ll see a range of casual dress to more formal attire.
Singing God’s Word
Our church is beautifully inter-generational, and this is reflected in our music. We like to sing one another’s songs. The one thing that unites our various musical styles is that they are all teaching us truths from God’s Word. At MABC, we like to say that the most important instrument is the voice of the congregation. Our musicians serve the congregation so that we can sing God’s Word to one another as we praise our God. Our music teams are typically made up of someone on percussion, keys, guitar, bass, a lead and supporting vocalist and an accent musician (e.g. violin, trumpet, clarinet).
Praying God’s Word
We believe God actually works through our prayers to accomplish his purposes. Because of that, we prioritize praying together within our services. In the middle of the service, one of the elders leads a congregational prayer. The priority and focus of the prayer is shaped by God’s Word, often borrowing the language of a particular passage. This is an important time as we together express our complete dependence upon God uniting our prayers together. The pastor will also pray just before and after the sermon.
Hearing God’s Word
Our sermons start with a reading from the Bible. This is the most important part of the sermon. It’s so important, we all stand for it. After that, the pastor explains and applies what we’ve just read. His goal is for the main point of his sermon to match the main point of the passage we read. That’s because we want to be hearing from God, not from a man. That’s also why we regularly preach through books of the Bible instead of choosing topics to speak on. If you want to hear a sample sermon before coming, you can listen here.
