Questions come up in your mind: Do I belong here? Am I really welcome? Will the people be unfriendly, or too friendly? Will I be conspicuous? Will it be easy to leave if I don’t enjoy it? Will they ask me for money? Will my kids enjoy it? How should I dress? Am I welcome if I don’t buy into what they are saying?
Showing up to church for the first time can be worrisome, to say the least, so let’s see if we can help ease the stress level…
Arriving
When you arrive at Creekside (for either our Saturday evening service, or one of our Sunday morning services), you’ll find parking spots that should be available right in front of the door. Look for the friendly people standing in front of the doors…that’s where you’ll want to go. They’ll help you find your way in.
Where do the kids go?
At the front door, there should be some friendly people (we call them “greeters”) to say hello, answer any questions you have, and direct you to our worship center. Most importantly, if you have kids, they can point you to the kids’ classes. General rule of thumb – babies and toddlers go right, others go left. If your kids are shy, they’re welcome to attend the adult service with you. No worried at all. But most kids really enjoy the kids’ programs.
What Should I Wear?
You’ll notice that everyone is dressed comfortably, in anything from “office casual” to jeans and sneakers to shorts and flip flops. That’s right – office casual is on the upside of the scale. So don’t bother looking for a tie before coming. And know this, it doesn’t get more formal on stage. Our lead pastor, Scott Kirk, is dressed just like everyone else – casual. So we think you’ll feel right at home. Imagine Starbucks…yup, lots of different ages, lots of variety in dress, and lots of casual fun.
What if I didn’t eat before coming?
Too much talk of Starbucks, huh? Well don’t fear. We have coffee and doughnuts ready in our cafe (just inside and to the right) available before, during and after services. So stop by and grab something, it’s on us.
The Bulletin & Welcome Card
You’ll notice we’ll give you a bulletin as you walk into the worship center – it gives you times and places for upcoming events, contact info for staff, and talk notes, so you can capture any thoughts you may have while you listen to the morning’s message. We also include an Welcome card, which is an easy way for us to get better acquainted. You can ask for any kind of information or assistance. We even have a group that will pray for your request during the week – just drop the card in the offering or hand it to virtually anyone. It’ll get to us. But it’s our way of knowing you were there, and we’d love to follow up and connect (we even give first-timers a gift).
Ok, so tell me about the Service…
The service usually begins with some upbeat music, followed by a welcome. Often there will be some form of multimedia to further explore what we’re about to study. Then Scott (or someone on our teaching staff) will begin the message. He usually speaks for about 30 minutes, and he does his best to make the messages interesting, enjoyable, and relevant to daily life. The message will be based on the Bible. One thing you will find out, Scott, our pastor, loves God’s Word and his passion is that you will come to love it as well. If you don’t have a Bible, don’t worry. We project the Bible passage on a big screen. Plus there are free Bibles available to you when you first walk in.
If Scott does his job right, you’ll hear solid Christian teaching in intelligent, understandable, relevant terms. And hopefully, you’ll laugh too. Maybe even feel a tug at your heart and be inspired and encouraged for your week ahead. As he wraps up, we’ll offer communion (Communion, also known as the Lord’s Supper, is a Christian celebration of the self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ. If you’re a committed Christian, or genuinely seeking a relationship with Jesus Christ, you’re welcome to share in communion with us. If not, you can just sit back and enjoy the music and spend some time in meditation and prayer). We’ll normally take offering (no pressure at all, it’s really for those that call Creekside home), and we’ll share some announcements. A final song and then you are off. Speaking of the Worship Team, they do a great job leading musically, with a contemporary feel (drums, guitars, keyboards, vocalists). Feel free to join in, or simply sit back and enjoy the words and music.
The service will end about 75 minutes after it began (and we hope it seems shorter than that: ‘ time flies when you’re enjoying yourself’!). If you’re new, please introduce yourself to a member of the staff, or anyone else for that matter and tell us it’s your first time. We’re very open to feedback and to hearing your first impressions.
Did you say Offering? So is this all about Money?
At one point in the service, usually following communion, we take up an offering by letting those who call Creekside their church home do so. We have baskets that everything goes into such as welcome cards and giving envelopes. We want you to feel welcome as our guest, with no pressure to give. In fact, we usually state exactly that as we announce the offering. At this point, if you have filled out the welcome card, you can drop it in the basket. We use the offering to support our paid staff (we have lots of volunteer staff), our facility rentals, our ministry programs, and the community around us (both in and outside of our church body). If you ever want to know more about how we deal with finances, feel free to talk with Scott or anyone on our Advisory Team.
Don’t Forget…
After the service, if you have kids, you’ll pick them up from their classrooms, (you’ll be tempted to leave them, first church lesson….. fight temptation). Then we hope you’ll stay around, meet some people and enjoy getting to know someone new. Church is about God and worship, but it’s also about community, friendship and fellowship. We desire for people to really experience warmth and friendliness at Creekside Christian Church.That’s about it. People often tell us that though they didn’t know what to expect, ‘if this is church, I can do this.’ We hope you’ll stop by sometime soon. If you do, please come down and say ‘hi’. Tell us that you found out about Creekside on the Internet.