Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church
Our Saviours: A Church of Churches
What began as a church too big for Naperville to support on its own has grown into a prominent and ever-present congregation. Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church stands on the edge of downtown right next door to Edward Hospital. But what makes them unique is not their age or their location, but building set up.
When faced with overcrowding problems, they did not have the room to expand on their own land. Instead, they bought a building one block down the road and developed it into a center for contemporary worship, meeting space, and a preschool ministry. Dubbed the Celebration Campus, this expansion has allowed Our Saviour’s to grow and flourish, but also presents some interesting challenges. The pastors are constantly asking how they can bring two different congregations to form one church. Through relational intentionality, Pastors John Gerike, Brian Wise, and Emily Wiles bring everyone together, leading a loving and service-driven congregation.
It is this Pastoral intentionality that makes Our Saviours the church it is today. In spite of the large congregation, the pastors make a huge effort to know everyone in their church. They are accomplishing what many pastors of large churches wish they could accomplish. As a result, Our Saviours is
a church of relational intentional integrity.
For further specific information about Our Saviour’s, feel free to explore the tabs below!
Our Saviour’s is a nurturing, grace-filled faith community.
- We welcome people from diverse spiritual experiences.
- We walk with all people on their faith journey.
- We value worship that nurtures life-long faith.
- We inspire use of our God-given gifts to serve others locally and globally.
We do all this to Know Jesus and Make Jesus Known.
We are called to be a beacon of light and hope that impacts the world by:
- Making connections and building relationships
- Creating space for healthy and diverse faith conversations
- Equipping individuals of all ages for growth, ministry, and leadership
- Putting our faith into action in the church and world.
Together we transform the lives of those serving and being served.
Something that makes Our Saviours unique is its multi-venue worship expereinces stretching across two different buildings that are only a block away from each other. In reality, the second building was acquired due to a lack of space. But the resulting dynamic has been an interesting challenge that has helped the church grow in new ways and provided them with more resources for their various ministries.
The Our Saviour’s Campus is the original church building that has been standing at its location for sixty years. Most of the offered worship services take place in its sanctuary. In this building you’ll also find fellowship and meeting spaces, rehearsal rooms, and staff offices.
What does the worship space look like?
Walking into the sanctuary at the Our Saviour’s campus, you’ll find a traditional worship setting with brick walls, lined with wooden chairs. To the left of the altar at the front of the room there is a beautiful organ and seating for a choir. To the right, a banner. Natural lighting fills the space, making it a wonderful space for worship.
Celebration is where you will find the activity center which functions as a universal space. On Sundays its used for the church’s most contemporary worship service, but during the week it serves multiple purposes.This building also houses the church’s preschool, which offers curriculum for children regardless if they are members of the church.
What does the worship space look like?
A more traditional setting, the contemporary worship service takes place in the building’s gym/activity center. Black folding chairs line room, prayer stations are set up in the back of the room. At the front, as typical of a contemporary worship space, you’ll find a stage with lights, instruments, and mics. While this room has the potential to feel like a blackbox environment, they never fully turn the lights down, so the room is more lively during worship.
Our Saviours offers five different worship services on a given weekend, ranging from traditional to contemporary!
The traditional service takes place at the Our Saviours Campus on Sunday mornings at 8:00am
The blended worship services take place at the Our Saviours Campus on Saturday evening at 5:00pm and on Sunday mornings at 9:00am & 10:30
The contemporary worship service takes place at the Celebration Campus on Sunday mornings at 10:00am
At all of these services, they hand out a weekly connection with announcements and connection cards. To see an example of what this handout looks like, click here.
The traditional worship service takes place at the Our Saviours campus on Sundays at 8:00am.
Service Demographics and Participation
This is a much smaller service compared to the rest. Attendance is mostly made up of older adults. Since there are no official vocal worship leaders, people are fairly participatory and it is clear that everyone knows the music well.
Worship Bulletin
At every traditional service the congregation relies on the bulletin for the order of service and music. At this service and this service only, the screen is not used. To see an example of the traditional service’s bulletin, click here.
Music and Atmosphere
This service is driven by hymns accompanied by both pipe organ and piano. Since it is a smaller service, things are quieter and a bit more reserved. The outer left section of chairs is roped off so people are more concentrated at the center and right side of the sanctuary.
Order of Service
As you can see from the bulletin, the order of the service is very traditional:
- Prelude
- Tolling of the Bell: The bell tower is something that is unique to the Our Saviour’s campus. As such, the ceremonial ringing of the bell begins every service at the Our Saviour’s campus.
- Welcome/Life in the Community: Weekly Announcements
- Call to Worship: this is composed of a traditional liturgy that remains the same week after week.
- Opening Song: With the opening song comes the processional. The congregation rises and faces the cross at the back of the sanctuary. Singing together, every turns, following the cross as it is brought to the altar and the pastors presiding over the service walk to the front of the room.
- Invocation/Prayer of the Day
- Scripture: Our Saviours follows a lectionary, choosing two different scripture readings from the four scheduled for the week.
- Song of Praise
- Response after the Announcement: This response is in the form of sung liturgy.
- Gospel Reading
- Response after the conclusion: more sung liturgy.
- Sermon: On a given weekend, two of the pastors will preach across all of the services. Each will have their own sermon that they have written on the given scripture of the weekend.
- Message Song
- Apostles Creed
- Prayers of the Community
- Sharing of Peace
- Offering Invitation
- Offertory
- Great Thanksgiving
- Words of Institution
- Lord’s Prayer
- Distribution of Communion and Opportunity for Prayer
- Communion: Communion at Our Saviours is in the form of intinction. Everyone is welcome at the table, and can go forward to receive a wafer and dip it in the wine.
- Prayer after Communion
- Benediction
- Sending Song
- Postlude
The blended worship services all take place in the sanctuary at the Our Saviours campus on Saturdays at 5:00pm and Sundays at 9:00am and 10:30am.
Service Demographics
The demographics vary at every service:
5:00pm Service: This service has an established congregation made up of people who like to attend worship at that time. Particularly former catholics. It is a more relaxed service, as there is nothing before or after.
9:00am Service: This is the most frequented service, as it meets at the same time as the Sunday School hour. You have a mixture of families and older members.
10:30am Service: This service is also attended by a large mixture of families and older members.
Bulletin
A “blended service” bulletin is distributed at these services. To see an example, click here.
Music and Atmosphere
The music is the main difference between the blended and traditional services. While all of the blended services have blended music, it looks different depending on the service. During my observation, the 5:00pm service featured a saxophone quartet, but typically features a men’s or woman’s chorale. The 9:00am service featured a brass ensemble and choir, and the 10:30 service featured a high school piano player, but typically features the Youth Choir. The music is really defined by the congregation, as it is whatever types of ensembles are available at the time.
Order of Service
Besides the music, the blended services are virtually the same as the traditional service. You will find minor differences in the liturgy such as a different Call to Worship and an absence of Sung Liturgy as well, but besides that it very similar:
- Prelude
- Tolling of the Bell/Welcome/Life in the Community
- Call to Worship: for the blended services, the Call to Worship is written by the pastors every week.
- Opening Song: This features the same processional that you see in the traditional service.
- Invocation/Prayer of the Day
- Scripture: Same as the traditional service every week.
- Children’s Message: This takes place at both the blended and contemporary services (minus the 5:00pm service). All of the children are called forward to hear a message from the Pastor, and are then sent either back to their seats or to Sunday School, depending on their parents wishes. (Sunday School is only offered during the 9:00am service, so that is the only time they are sent to Sunday School).
- strong>Sermon
- Message Song
- Apostles Creed/Prayers of the People
- Sharing of Peace/Offering Invitation
- Thank Offering
- Offering Music
- Offertory
- Offertory Prayer/Prayers of the People (10:30)/Words of Institution/Lord’s Prayer/Lamb of God
- Communion: the same as the traditional service.
- Communion Blessing
- Communion Blessing/Benediction
- Sending Song
- Sending
- Postlude
The contemporary service is at the Celebration Campus on Sundays at 10:00am
Service Demographics and Participation
This service is mostly made up of families with young children, but you will also find young adults and teenagers as well as some older couples. Participation is a bit lower during this service, most likely due to the nature of the music and how it is performed. Since worship is lead by a band on a stage, people often have a harder time participating as it is easy to sit back and remain unnoticed in their silence.
Bulletin
Walking into the contemporary service, you will only receive the Weekly Connection, which can be found in the “Service Times” tab.
Music and Atmosphere
The music and atmosphere of this service varies greatly from that of the services at the Our Saviours campus. Worship is lead by a band composed of 6 vocalists, 3 guitarists, 1 bassist, a drummer, and keyboard player. The music is often older contemporary worship songs such as “How Great is Our God”. The nature of the music leads to a lighter, casual, and more laid back atmosphere where families can feel comfortable with children who are a bit restless.
Order of Service
The order of this service reflects what one would typically expect of a contemporary worship service. The service begins with opening songs of worship, followed by welcome and Announcements. You are also asked to greet your neighbors and engage in welcoming conversations. The Children’s Message is followed by the Scripture Reading and the Sermon. After the sermon is the offering and Communion, which, like at the other campus, is in the form of intinction. During Communion, people are given the opportunity to participate at Prayer Stations that are set up at the back of the room. Ending with closing worship songs, the benediction is affirming, and is followed by liturgy that sends everyone out into the world to be disciples and fulfill the Mission of the Church. The service ends with the congregational effort to put away the folded chairs, converting the space back into a gym.
Family-Friendly Service
One thing that is unique to this service is the emphasis on families and children. Pastor Brian even asks the children to serve during this service, as they help with collecting the offering. Its not often that you see children serving during a church service. It was so great to see that everyone in the room was invited to participate and serve in their own.
Visitor Engagement
Visitors at this service are encouraged to take home a freshly baked loaf of bread after the service. With this warm gift comes intentional and inviting conversation with Pastor Brian. This is a unique and great way to actively engage with newcomers on a weekly basis!
Our Saviours hopes that you would come away from their worship service knowing that you are a loved child of God and that you are valued and called to be apart of the Body of Christ. They also hope that you would be empowered to serve and act on what you’ve learned.
Another opportunity for worship at Our Saviours is getting involved with their Brewing Questions ministry. Monthly, they meet up at a restaurant for drinks and a meal, discussing hard questions that are present in the church and in society. Breaking bread and sharing communion at the restaurant, they engage in a different form of worship from the weekly experience.
Our Saviours is a Serving Congregation
There are many different ways that Our Saviours is actively serving, always responding to the needs of the community:
- Involved in Creating Loaves and Fishes, which is a resource for impoverished people in the community to get access to food, cars, and healthcare.
- Involved in Creating Samaracare, even having off campus offices in their Celebration Campus. To learn about Samaracare, click here.
- They open up their facilities to homeless people during the summer
- They have intentional conversations with the police department about the community’s growing mental health issues
- They maintain a relationship with Edward Hospital
- They participate in Interfaith and Ecumenical Movements across the community.
Website: Our Saviours
Our Saviour’s Campus Address: 815 S. Washington St, Naperville, IL 60540
Celebration Campus Address: 919 S. Washington St, Naperville, IL 60540
Phone Number: (630)-355-2522
Email Address: ContactUs@oursaviours.com