WELCOME TO WAYSIDE CHURCH!

At Wayside Presbyterian Church, we believe that God saves and grows His people through the simple and historic means of grace: His Word, prayer, the sacraments, worship, service, and gospel community. By His grace, God is renewing individuals, families, cities, and cultures through the powerful gospel of Jesus Christ. We invite you to come to join us in this mission. We are an intergenerational community with a wide variety of professions and backgrounds. I'd love to meet you and hope to see you soon!


                                      —Brian Cosby, Senior Pastor

 { COME AS YOU ARE }

We are a community of people who are in process. We have imperfect messy lives, but we are pursuing and experiencing a transforming relationship with Jesus and with each other. Everybody is welcome here whatever your story, your questions, doubts, or struggles. 


We want to invite you to join us for Lord's Day worship—to engage with God's people in Word-centered, Christ-exalting, and soul-enriching praise to our God.


SUNDAY MORNINGS >>

Sundays at Wayside



Morning Worship  9:00am & 10:45am

Meets in the main sanctuary. Overflow spaces are available in the upstairs overflow room (with audio/video feed) and in the Fellowship Hall downstairs.


Infant Nursery  Available @ the 9:00am, 10:45am, and 6:00pm worship services. Next to the sanctuary for infants through 3 years. We also have a mother's nursing room and a family room with audio of the service.


Evening Worship  6:00pm

We enjoy closing the Lord's Day together in a time of singing and hearing the preaching of God's Word.



Text for this week's sermon

Week:  5/11/2025   |   John 4


1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John   2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.


7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.  The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”


16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”


27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.

What We Believe

We are a "confessional" church, which means that we enjoy a rich heritage of Reformed theology, ministry, and worship—stemming from the Protestant Reformation of the 16th and 17th centuries. In particular, we affirm the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms of the 1640s. Below is a summary of what we believe:


The Bible:  We believe the Bible is the written word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit and without error in the original manuscripts. The Bible is the revelation of God’s truth and is infallible and authoritative in all matters of faith and practice.  


God: We believe in the Holy Trinity. There is one God, who exists eternally in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In himself, he is perfectly holy and powerful, altogether just and wise, and utterly good and loving.  


Humanity:  We believe that all people are created in the image of God with dignity as they were made to reflect God’s character in all of life. Yet, we believe that all people are born as sinners, totally depraved and totally unable to save themselves from God’s displeasure, except by his mercy.


Salvation: We believe that salvation is by God alone as he sovereignly chooses those he will save. We believe his choice is based on his grace, not on any human individual merit, or foreseen faith. We believe that salvation is through Christ alone by grace alone through faith alone.


Jesus Christ: We believe that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, who through his perfect life and sacrificial death atoned for the sins of all who will trust in him, alone, for salvation. We believe that Jesus, our Redeemer, was raised again for our justification, and ascended into the heavens, where he sits at the right hand of the Father Almighty, continually making intercession for his people, and governing the whole world as head over all things for his church. We believe that Jesus will return, bodily and visibly, to judge all mankind, to receive his people to himself, and to renew all things.  


Holy Spirit:  We believe that the Holy Spirit indwells God’s people and gives them the strength and wisdom to trust Christ and follow him. We believe that the Holy Spirit refreshes, remakes, restores, reforms, and revives. We are never alone because he is in us and with us.  


Church and Kingdom: We believe that as the living God renews all things, he has been gathering a people, called the church, from every nation, race, class, and culture. He instructs us as his people to become actively invested in the world’s people and problems in productive ways by bringing his truth and values to bear on all of life. Jesus has power and authority to right what is wrong with the world and he chooses the church as his primary instrument for making disciples of all nations. Thus, the church's mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ through the means of grace that God has provided; ordinarily, God's Word, the sacraments, and prayer.


(With thanks to Lookout Mountain PCA for parts of this summary)