Covenant Reformed Church

06/26/2026

𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟏𝟎 𝐨𝐟 𝐨𝐮𝐫 “𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬” 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬…𝐒𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠: Another practice that is common in CREC churches is that of listening to Scriptures read aloud. This is distinct from the reading of the text for the sermon—it is simply a time in the service where the Word of God is recognized as central and foundational to our lives. We usually have at least one reading from the Old Testament, and one from the New. When the reading is concluded, the reader will say “The Word of the Lord,” and the congregation responds together with “Thanks be to God.”

Because we believe that worship should be “according to Scripture,” this means that if ever we are asked about a particular element of our worship service, we will be able to answer the questions by citing a passage of Scripture. It is no different here. “Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching” (1 Tim. 4:13, LSB). This public reading of Scripture is distinct from the public exposition of it.

It might be guessed that this was done in the first century because published Bibles were rare, and the only way the parishioners could “read” the Scriptures was by hearing it read. We, on the other hand, have a stack of Bibles at home. This is a reasonable comment, but we don’t want to be found as those who have a stack of Bibles at home, gathering dust. We believe that Christians will honor individually and in families what they honor together, collectively in worship. In other words, when the Scriptures are given a place of honor in the public worship of God, it is more likely that individuals will actually give themselves to the reading of Scripture with the copies they have at home (2 Tim. 3:15).

06/25/2026

Nicholas and Aaron interview Reformed Baptist Pastor, Samuel Farag about Eastern and Coptic Orthodoxy.

06/22/2026

The sermon text for this Sunday, June 28th, is from the book of Psalms.

06/21/2026

Live Stream

06/19/2026

𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟗 𝐨𝐟 𝐨𝐮𝐫 “𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬” 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬…𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬: Another notable thing about our worship services in the CREC is that we are interested in learning how to sing “in parts,” soprano, alto, tenor, and bass.

There are two basic reasons why we want to learn how to sing in parts. The first is that higher levels of musicianship (on the part of the whole congregation) give us more scope when it comes to glorifying God. We sing to Him because He is worthy (Rev. 4:11), and if He is worthy, then we should offer the best we can give Him. We should seek to worship Him with skill (Ps. 33:3), as much skill as we have. And this is not something that is beyond the reach of ordinary people—the mere existence of so many hymnals and psalters with all four parts written out is a testimony to former times when there was a much higher level of
musical literacy in Christian congregations.

The second reason is that this is a glorious way to testify to our Trinitarian faith. Musical harmony is one of the best illustrations available for unity in diversity and diversity in unity. Many voices coming together as one provide an embodiment of love, which is to say, an embodiment of triune life.

And actually, there is a third reason as well. Singing this way is beautiful, and immensely rewarding to those who are privileged to participate in it.

Having said all this, we should hasten to add that we don’t believe that our congregation has “arrived.” This is a hard thing to do, and CREC congregations struggle with these and related musical issues. All we are saying here is that we think such a struggle is worth it.

06/15/2026

06/14/2026

Organist Daniel Minnick and friends

06/12/2026

𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝟴 𝗼𝗳 𝗼𝘂𝗿 “𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀” 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀…𝗣𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗺 𝗦𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴: One marked feature of worship in the CREC is the abundance of psalms. There have been some in the Reformed tradition who have insisted on singing only psalms, but that is not what we are doing. We do not hold to “exclusive psalmody,” but it would be fair to say that we seek to practice common psalmody. While we sing other hymns as well, we do want our dedication to psalms to be overt and evident. Psalms provide the backbone of our musical worship. Why is this?

The apostle Paul tells us to do so. He says in both Ephesians and Colossians that they are to address one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16). There are three words used here— psalms, hymns, and odes, and in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament), these are the three words that are used as the headings throughout the book of Psalms.

If a congregation is disciplined in the singing of psalms, then the uninspired hymns they compose and sing will be psalm-like. When the Church is singing psalms, we are not surprised to find compositions like “St. Patrick’s Breastplate” or “A Mighty Fortress” being sung in our church. These are not psalms, but they are hymns that sit at the feet of psalms to be instructed and shaped.

When the larger Church gave up singing psalms, we were untethered from our God-given baseline. Just as sermons drift away from the truth when they cease to be expository, so also the musical portion of the worship service drifts away from the truth when we don’t have regular musical reminders of what God considers appropriate vocal praise. One of the features of the songs in the songbook God inspired for us is the presence of enemies, but we have refused to ask God to “break their evil arms,” for example. We are convinced that the way out of this cul-de-sac is to recover the singing of psalms. And that is what we are trying to do.

06/10/2026

Acts 20:17-21:17