Welcome!
About Us
The Sower’s Chapel is a congregation of the worldwide movement known as the New Church, which is a new Christianity. Its message shows a clear path to happiness in this world and the life to come. Here you can seek answers to your questions about God, love, and life after death.
Our particular chapter of the New Church (organizationally incorporated and legally known as the General Church of the New Jerusalem) is a small denomination with congregations in many countries around the world.
New Church beliefs are founded in the Biblical Word of God in the Old and New Testaments, and provide new insight into its meaning. So much of the Bible has meaning beyond the literal sense (the parables are good examples). Emanuel Swedenborg, an eighteenth-century theologian and scientist, provided a framework for understanding the Bible’s internal meaning, as well as writing many additional volumes which shed light on why we’re here and how to develop a loving and eternal relationship with God. Swedenborg taught that authentic religion is kindness towards the neighbor and a willingness to be led by God.
The New Church teaches that there is one God who we know as the Lord God Jesus Christ. We look to Him as a being unconditional love itself, who neither judges nor condemns. We believe that God created the universe and everything in it with an ultimately loving purpose. Each thing that happens, even if it appears to be bad, is used by Him for the greater good of humanity — that is, drawing each of us closer to the Divine and providing us with an evolving spiritual consciousness.
New Church doctrine is immediately practical and deeply spiritual: it is a religion to be lived, not just believed. These teachings help people explore the Bible in ways that can have immediate application to their life.
The Worship Experience
For examples of our worship services and to livestream a service in real time, please visit our YouTube page: The Sower’s Chapel.
Worship takes place each Sunday at 11 AM. You are very warmly invited. Most weeks the format is:
- Opening of the Lord’s Word
- Prayers and Scriptural readings
- Pastor’s message to the children
- Children leave for a short Sunday School lesson
- Pastor’s Message to the adults
- Closing of the Lord’s Word
Music in many forms is integral to worship.
The New Church stresses that all financial offerings be a free will gift of support. An offertory bowl is located at the rear of the sanctuary as you enter. This offering is brought forward to the altar during worship and blessed.
During summer months and other select times of the year, the separate children and adult messages are combined into a family talk suitable for all ages.
During the warmer weather services occasionally move from inside the church to a grassy area directly outside, or across the road to an elevated spot known as “The Knob.”
Join us for worship on Sundays at 11:00 a.m.