Worship
Like
most historic reformed churches, our worship centres on the
reading and preaching of the Bible, with the response of
the people to God in praises, prayer and giving.
As a church we believe that the Bible should regulate
everything we do, including worship. This applies to
worship too. God has revealed in Scripture how he is to be
worshipped, nothing is to be introduced which he has not
specifically commanded. One outworking of this principle is
that we sing only from the book of praise which God has
given to us - the Psalms. Another outworking of this is
that our worship is not accompanied by musical instruments.
Nowhere has he instructed his people to praise him with
songs other than those provided in the Book of Psalms.
Instrumental music was an integral part of Old Testament
sacrificial worship, which was fulfilled in Christ, and
there is no example of such accompaniment in the church of
the New Testament.
While today this is a minority position amongst Christians,
historically it was different. Unaccompanied Psalm singing
was the norm in the Christian church for 1600 years. The
Book of Psalms provides songs which are inspired,
Christ-centred, timeless, non-sectarian and continually
relevant, the property of the universal church.
As a denomination we undertook the task of revising our
psalm book to bring it more in line with modern English but
at the same time holding as a true translation. This work
was completed in 2004. The new book of psalms is now in use
in many of our congregations, including our fellowship in
Letterkenny