Come as you are.
You don’t have to have it all figured out to belong here. Formation is a place to belong.
Sundays are a place to come as you are — curious, skeptical, hopeful, unsure — and take your next step in community. Formation Church’s aim is to bring the feeling of the early Christian church into a modern-day environment. Think of Sunday services like hanging out at a friend’s home: Everyone is welcome. We want you to feel comfortable the moment you walk in!
We gather as a community every Sunday morning from 9:00–10:30am.
There is no dress code, and we invite you to come however you feel the most comfortable (slippers and a t-shirt are perfectly fine)!
What to Expect
A place to belong.
We aim for the feel of the early Christian church — like gathering in a friend’s living room. Everyone is welcome. We want you to feel at home the moment you walk in.
Worship
Encounter God together.
Engaging in corporal worship helps us know God beyond the intellectual knowledge we gain from reading the Bible, as true worship allows us to experience God and emotionally feel His presence in us. Worship is our time to sing songs that honor God, and during Sunday services, the lyrics are projected on screens for everyone to follow along. While worship might feel a bit like karaoke — music, lyrics, people singing together — it’s so much more than that. Much like how art, poetry, or music can reach a place words alone cannot, worship opens our hearts to the presence of our Creator — a God who is Himself creative.
When taking part in Formation Church worship, if you love to sing, you can sing along! If you want to listen, just standing (or sitting) and listening is perfectly fine. The goal of worship is to be together and prepare hearts and minds for the presence of God, and you are more than welcome to engage in worship to whatever degree you are most comfortable with.
Stories
Real life. Real people. Real challenges. Real answers (sometimes).
Often times on Sundays, we invite a Storyteller–someone from our community or beyond–to share their story. This portion of service is done in a talk show style, interview-on-the-couch-with-questions format. Hearing stories are always enjoyable and help us relate to one another, and we believe that our shared, honest, and heartfelt human experiences connect us deeply and remind us that none of us are alone in what we’re carrying.
Conversation on the Couch
Honest conversation.
Occasionally, in place of or after a Storyteller, we host a Conversation on the Couch time.
Conversation on the Couch is part late-night talk show, part podcast, and during this portion of the service, Pastor Dave will interview a guest while the audience joins in by anonymously submitting questions in real-time through a QR code. After, Pastor Dave or the guest will address the wonderings posted from the audience, and this type of conversational dialogue creates space for authenticity, laughter, and deeper reflection.
Teaching
What Jesus said and did.
Each week, Pastor Dave or another speaker will share a short teaching or a practical reflection drawn from Scripture that can be applied to everyday life. Early in the year, the teaching focuses on understanding Jesus Himself, specifically what He said and what He did. Throughout the year, the talks explore the spiritual practices of Jesus in greater detail. These teachings follow the rhythm of Practicing the Way: four weeks of learning and one week of reflection, spanning across nine practices a year. We also have special teachings for Easter, High School Graduates, Christmas Eve, and Church Visioning Sundays, with the format of the service slightly deviating from the normal teaching delivery.
Discussion Groups (Step1 Groups)
Formation in Community.
After the teaching, we spend a good amount of time in Step1 Groups, which are small circles of 5–6 people that discuss their reactions to the teaching and other wonderings about faith and spiritual formation. Being a part of a Step1 Group is one of avenue where we build our Practicing Community and help each other take genuine, concrete steps towards following Jesus. Ultimately, these groups are centered on spiritual formation in community, and through listening, sharing, and growing together, all Step1Group members build upon their relationships with one another and with Jesus.
The Greatest Commandment
Love God. Love others.
Each Sunday, at the start of service, we recite in unity and with an open, expectant heart what Jesus called the Greatest Commandment. This scripture is not rotely repeated or recited for ritualistic reasons. Rather, verbally stating the Greatest Commandment reminds us to align our hearts with God’s love, renouncing hypocrisy and re-centering our lives on what matters most.
The Greatest Commandment from Deuteronomy 6:4–9 (the shema) and Leviticus 19:18 are shared below:
“The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.
Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road,
when you lie down and when you get up.
Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”
“The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.”
We don’t recite this as empty ritual, but as a reminder to align our hearts with God’s love — renouncing hypocrisy and re-centering our lives on what matters most.
Communion
Remembering Christ’s love together.
We begin the service time of the first Sunday of each month by taking Communion together as a sacred act of remembrance and gratitude for Jesus’s redemptive, sacrificial love for us. If you’re visiting, know that participation is completely optional. Although Communion is for those who have chosen to follow Jesus, everyone is welcome to witness and reflect on its meaning.
Communion is consistently conducted in the same manner each Sunday that we have it: We eat a small wafer and drink grape juice to symbolize the body and blood of Christ and the life He sacrificed so that we can be blessed with forgiveness and salvation. Also, influenced by St. Ignatius, we pray the anima Christi (“Soul of Christ”) together. This prayer (which is listed below) reflects how we are internally changing to become more Chirstlike, developing a deep sense of belonging, and allowing Christ’s love to shape us so that we can share our transformation with the world.
“Soul of Christ, sanctify me. Body of Christ, save me. Blood of Christ, inebriate me.”
You can also discover more about Communion in the following New Testament scriptures: Matthew 26: 26-28, Mark 14: 22-24, Luke 22: 19-20, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.