Welcome! We serve the most amazing God, and we hope you will enjoy gathering around Jesus Christ with us. Whether you’ve been to a church before or this is your first time, here’s what you can expect at Charlotte Gospel Hall meetings.
Sunday Morning Worship (9:30-10:30)
We start with a time of worshiping and praising God together, remembering the Lord Jesus as He requested His disciples to do on the night He was betrayed. You’ll see the men in the congregation calling out hymns, leading prayer, or reading verses from the Bible. While it’s common today for worship to be led by an individual pastor or worship leader, we believe that the Bible teaches (e.g. in 1 Peter 2:4-10) that all believers are priests and that our worship should reflect this direct access to God that we all enjoy. The Bible also teaches (e.g. in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35) that while everyone is to worship God together, women are to remain under the authority of the men — so you will hear the men leading the worship, and everyone joining in the hymns.
During this time, we also celebrate the “Lord’s Supper” (also called “Communion”), a ceremony that the Lord Jesus instituted for His disciples to remember Him by on the night before He was crucified. It’s a very simple ceremony: a loaf of bread is broken and shared, and then wine is shared as well. The bread is a picture of Jesus’s body that was broken for us on the cross, and the wine is a picture of His blood that was shed for us as He died.
We believe that remembering the Lord through the bread and wine is the privilege of every true believer. If what the bread and wine symbolize (Jesus’s death on the cross) applies to you, then it’s your privilege to obey His request that you remember Him. However, we do ask that you refrain from taking the bread or wine when you first visit, so that we can get to know you and what you believe about the Lord Jesus, and also so that you can get to know us and what we believe.
What to Wear
Our priority when we meet is the Lord Jesus, who promised in Matthew 18:20 to be among us when we come together. We want our actions — including what we choose to wear — to reflect that. Some of us will dress more formally than others, but we all want to be respectful and modest. We encourage you to come visit and get to know us!
You will see that women cover their heads with a scarf, hat, or similar accessory during the meetings. This is based on our understanding of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, which teaches that the authority which God intended for the Man to have over the Woman in Creation is a picture of how the Lord Jesus has authority over the Church — that is, He is the “head” of the Church. These verses instruct us to observe the practice of men leaving their heads uncovered during worship, and women covering their heads, as a picture of Jesus’s authority and the Church’s willing submission to His authority.
Sunday School (11:00 AM-12:00 PM)
We start off singing songs with the children, who will recite verses from the Bible that they are memorizing (the younger ones get extra help from their parents :)) before they go to their classes. The adults also typically have a large-group Bible study at this time, although from time to time we may have a speaker present a message.