Worship at First Friends

Online Sunday Worship

Our 9 am unprogrammed Meeting for Worship on Sundays is being held online while our 11 am programmed service is now being held in person. If you are interested in joining us at 9 am via Zoom, please request the link by emailing office@firstfriendsmeeting.org. All are welcome to attend our in-person service at 11 am; we ask that you wear a mask. We look forward to seeing you.

Unprogrammed Meeting for Worship

This begins at 9 am each Sunday and offers an opportunity for 45 minutes of worship in the manner of early Friends.  After a few minutes of opening silence, a short passage is read followed by our time of waiting worship.  Frequently a message arises out of the silence. We close meeting with a “circle handshake” and enter into a time of worship sharing followed by announcements.  Prior to the pandemic, we met in the gathering room on the lower level. We are always delighted to welcome visitors. When we return to in-person services in the future, to find us, park in the main lot and go in the door on the south end of the building and then take an immediate left into the gathering room.

Programmed Meeting for Worship

This begins at 11 am each Sunday and offers an opportunity for worship incorporating silence, sharing, singing, music from the choir, prayer, and a message from a pastor, a Meeting member, or guest speaker. At First Friends, a typical 11 am programmed service looks like this:

  • music prelude beforehand
  • a friendly welcome with announcements, joys and concerns
  • an opening hymn
  • a short message for the younger children
  • choir anthem or special music
  • an offertory
  • a reading from the Bible
  • a short message from the pastor or someone from the meeting
  • 15 to 20 minutes of open worship, often with a person or two speaking out of the silence.
  • a closing hymn
  • a benediction and an encouragement to shake hands with your neighbor.

Worship varies some each week — it’s never completely predictable. On occasion a carefully prepared message or chosen hymn will be abandoned, if we feel the Spirit leading us in a different direction. Worship usually lasts about one hour, but we’ll finish early or sometimes go a bit longer if it feels right to do so. Our goal in worship is to listen to God, and follow the Spirit’s leading.