What are services like?

Our worship style at Mountain View is relatively casual.  We start at 10:00 a.m. each Sunday morning with praise music, prayer and offering, a sermon, and then communion and closing songs. 

Music
Our music is mixed and you may encounter anything from ancient hymns to Messianic Jewish songs to modern praise.  God is glorified in our praise and is less concerned with the specific style of music than with the hearts of the people worshipping.  We believe that the humankind has been worshipping God for thousands of years, using many types of music styles and instruments from acapella, choirs, chants, hymns, orchestras, gospel, and choruses.  Our praise band includes acoustic guitars, bass guitars, electric guitars, piano, keyboard, and drums.   

Drama
We often include dramas to go along with the lessons.  We have a drama ministry called Souled Out who do monologues and skits to help teach.  Often these are comedies, but occasionally they perform some amazing serious dramas also.
Sacred Spaces
Several times a year, we do Sacred Spaces Worship.  This is interactive and experiential worship.   Often, this is in connection with ancient church traditions and holidays such as Seder, All Saints Day, Christmas, and others.  Worship elements for these may include candles and candlelighting, responsive prayers, and interactive elements.   We do not do these every Sunday, but for special lessons and special occasions.

Sermons
Most teaching at MVCC is what is called expository.  This means, we go to the Bible and teach directly from the books, finding our message directly in God’s word as opposed to writing a message and then going to the Bible to support it.  We teach both Old and New Testament books and generally go through an entire book before moving on.  We also teach Thematic lessons on subjects such as Christian Growth, Service to Others, Tithing, Prayer, etc.  In these cases, we go to the Bible and find all that God has to say on the subject and then teach from that.  Sermons at MVCC tend to run 20 – 30 minutes on average.

Communion
At MVCC, we observe the Lord’s Supper every week to commemorate our Lord’s crucifixion which has reconciled us to God and granted life eternal to all who respond by faith to his offer of grace.  The Lord’s Supper is available to all sincere worshippers of Jesus Christ regardless of your church background.  We use grape juice for most communion instead of wine out of respect for those among us who have struggled with alcoholism.

Offerings
Through regular offerings, those who call MVCC their church home give financially to support the ministry of God here and globally. Unless our Lord leads you to contribute, as our guest, please do not feel obligated to give.  If you would like to give online or support MVCC in other ways, please visit our Support MVCC page for more information.

Passing the Peace and Coming Together
We generally end our services by standing and coming together in the aisles where we pass the peace to one another.  This is an old church tradition of wishing one another ‘Peace be unto you.’  This is a prayer and a wish for each other. After passing the peace, we hold hands and sing a final song together, usually raising our hands together at the end of the song.  This is a tradition of ours to remind each other that we are really just one big extended family of God.