Worship
Worship is our opportunity to praise God together in various ways with a variety of music, liturgies, traditions, and experiences while maintaining the essential components of prayer, confession, fellowship, music, response, praise, adoration, and celebration. If you would like to worship from home, please visit Edgeboro’s YouTube Channel or Edgeboro’s Facebook Page for live streams and previous videos of worship services.
Music
Music is a huge part of Moravian worship and spiritual life. We have songs for almost every occasion, and when we do not, we write our own! Below are the musical groups that we offer. Everyone who enjoys sharing any level of musical talent is welcome to join these groups.
- Adult Choir (Vocal)
- Children’s Choirs (Vocal)
- Edgeboro Ensemble (Wind instruments)
- The Edge Band (Contemporary instruments)
Holy Communion
The sacrament of Holy Communion is a gift from God. It represents the work and power of Christ, who is present through the sacrament. We celebrate Holy Communion regularly as part of our tradition. Any baptized individual from any church is welcome to partake. We recognize the tremendous value of coming together at the table for the Lord’s Supper as it reminds uswhy we are called together as a community and why we are sent out to serve. Please read more about it here.
Baptism
Baptism is also a gift from God. It is the sacrament of Christian initiation into the fellowship of believers. Knowing this, Moravians believe that it is very important to hold any baptism in the presence of the congregation during worship. It is a time to recognize not only the covenant between us and God, but also the covenant that we make with each other, pledging to love and support one another in the Christian faith.
Lovefeast
A lovefeast is not a sacrament, but a worship tradition that traces back to the 18th century and ultimately to the beginning of the Church. Early Christians had agape (Greek for “love”) meals when they would break bread with each other recognizing unity and equality among the members of the body of Christ. In the Moravian Church, this practice was renewed on August 13th, 1727. On that day, a lovefeast was the result of a Pentecost experience during a communion service. Those in worship wanted to stay together, so they had food brought in so worship could continue. With a much smaller portion of food and drink, we celebrate lovefeast multiple times each year during worship as a way to remember how important true community is and how it enables us to do the work of Christ in the world.
Christmas Eve
Advent is a joyful and busy time in the church year. We set up and display a putz – a depiction of Jesus’ birth. Learn more about the putz here. We also have three worship services on Christmas Eve. We hold three services at 3:00pm, 5:30pm, and 8:00pm. The first two services are lovefeast and candlelight services and the final service is a candlelight service. We make our own candles for these services! Even though the star is out all year round, we especially look to it in Advent as a sign of the light in Christ that has come into this world.
Lent and Holy Week
Lent is another eventful time in the church year. Each Wednesday of Lent, we hold a small service and dinner. Each day during Holy Week we hold services to recount Jesus’ last week before his death. Easter morning is a joyous occasion as we celebrate our risen Lord. We participate with other Bethlehem area Moravian Churches in a sunrise service at Central Moravian Church followed by our own Easter worship services.
