It’s a Jubilee Sunday!
This Sunday is one of our great Jubilee Celebrations of 2025 as we honor what God has done throughout Cynthia Jensen’s 40 years as our treasurer and bless her as she retires at the end of this year. I don’t want to say, “We’ve saved the best for last,” but… be prepared for a Sunday filled with goodness, abundance, and joy. Saundra Van Horn has served diligently as the chair for this event to make sure that every detail is splendid.
Filling the pulpit will be the Rev. Dr. Kipp Wolfe. Pastor Kipp served as the 21st Senior Minister of FCC El Reno from 1977 to 1985. He is part of the story of how Cynthia came to succeed her mother, Gloria, as the treasurer of our congregation (who did it for several years before Cynthia – and I’ve heard that Cynthia’s grandmother also served as the treasurer.) Tess, Sloan, Blair, and Tatum – you’d better watch out!
Every good thing,
Pastor Colton
Worship at FCC El Reno
Sunday Mornings at 10:45am
Visiting a new church community can be an overwhelming experience. To help put you at ease, we’ve provided some general information below about what you can expect on any given Sunday.
Church Online
Since 2014, we have streamed our services live through YouTube. While we love gathering in-person, we also affirm that worshipping online is another way to make the body of Christ real, felt, and Known.
If you are worshipping via live-stream, you may wish to gather a few items to make that experience feel more like worship. Those items might be a candle to welcome the light of Christ, a Bible (book-bound or app), and elements to participate in the Lord’s Supper.
What to Expect:
Welcome
We welcome you! We don’t pretend to be perfect, but we try hard to be faithful followers of Jesus. We’re a friendly bunch and we offer you the same welcome that God has extended to every one of us.
Duration
Our worship services tend to last 75 minutes.
Baptism
The beginning of Christian life is baptism, where it “represents the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, it symbolizes the death and burial of the old self of the repentant believer, and the joyous birth of a brand new being in Christ.” (from Word to the Church on Baptism.)
Dress
We do not care what you wear! We have it all every Sunday, and we love it all. Really!
Music
There aren’t many places where you’ll hear a pipe organ and drums in the same service, but we like being eclectic. We sing old Gospel favorites, standard hymns, contemporary Christian music, and even a few mainstream songs with extraordinary meanings. Our music is led by our equally talented Chancel Choir and Praise Band.
The Lord’s Supper
As is the case in most Disciples of Christ churches, we participate in the Lord’s Supper each week. Every individual has a different understanding of what happens at the table, but at the very least we remember Jesus together. One of our distinctives is that we have an “open table”: all are welcome to participate. “As part of the one body of Christ, we welcome all to the Lord’s Table as God has welcomed us.” (from The Identity Statement of the Disciples of Christ.)
Preaching
The preaching is mostly done by Pastor Colton Lott. His sermons can be found on our podcast to hear anytime. In his words, “I try to incorporate storytelling, a deep love for the scriptural text, and an awareness of how the tradition we have received still speaks to our daily lives and to current events so that we can pursue God’s love and justice in the world today.” Colton’s sermons are of varying lengths, but generally last 15-20 minutes.
Liturgy
We typically design our Sunday worship around series that last for several weeks. These series help guide the songs we sing, sermon content, and even the way the sanctuary looks. We observe the “liturgical year” - the cycle that takes us from Advent, to Christmas, to Epiphany, to Lent, to Easter, to Pentecost, to Ordinary Time and repeat - and use traditional colors to mark the changing of these seasons. Our pastors wear “preaching robes” from Advent (four Sundays before Christmas) through Pentecost (seven weeks after Easter). This is to remove the distraction of our pastors’ fashion choices and focus worship on the story of Jesus.