WORSHIP
Our Mission: Adirondack Baptist Church seeks to glorify God in all we do. Therefore, we endeavor to reach the lost with the gospel of Jesus Christ, faithfully proclaim God's word, and be obedient to the clear commands of scripture as our sole authority of faith and practice.
Our Worship: We welcome visitors to join us at any of our worship services. Our time together in worship is central to who we are as a community of believers in Jesus Christ.
A word from Pastor Norman:
It is has been my privilege to serve at Adirondack Baptist Church as Pastor since June 2001. Throughout those years I have noticed many changes in the ministry and in my own personal life.
I love to see people grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. My passion is expository preaching of the Scriptures so that our people will see from the Bible how real God is, and also how real He wants to be in their lives. I love seeing people walk into church excited about our God, but love it even more when they walk out more excited about God.
It is my desire to see our people gather not just for a church service, but to actually worship the One who truly is worthy of our worship.
It is also my desire to see our people engage in the ministry itself, as we are so aptly reminded in Paul’s letter to the Ephesian church - the Lord saved us to serve Him. — “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Ephesians 2:10
What is Worship:
The Bible doesn’t give a formal definition of worship. But we can start by looking at the derivation of the word." Our English word "worship" comes from two Old English words: weorth, which means "worth," and scipe or ship, which means something like shape or "quality." We can see the Old English word -ship in modern words like friendship and sportsmanship – that’s the quality of being a friend, or the quality of being a good sport.
So worth-ship is the quality of having worth or of being worthy. When we worship, we are saying that God has worth, that he is worthy. Worship means to declare worth, to attribute worth. Or to put it in biblical terms, we praise God. We speak, or sing, about how good and powerful God is.
This is a purpose for which we are called: "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9). We were called for the purpose of praising God; worshiping God. That is one of the job descriptions of a Christian. We should declare that God is worthy, worth more than everything else put together.
Now let’s look at the biblical words. In both Hebrew and Greek, there are two major uses of the words used for worship. The first usage means to bow down, to kneel, to put one’s face down as an act of respect and submission. Our body language is saying, “I will do whatever you want me to. I am ready to listen to your instructions and I am willing to obey.”
The other kind of biblical word means to serve. Roughly half of the time these words are translated as worship, and the other half as serve. It carries the idea of doing something for God — making a sacrifice or carrying out his instructions.
Of course, word meanings don’t prove what worship is, but they do illustrate three kinds of worship.
1 | 2 | 3
