If you are not used to going to church you might wonder what we do. The service includes:
what happens?
- praise - in word and song - for God's love
- the reading of the Bible and a talk about its relevance to life today
- silent times for reflection and thought
- prayers where we bring before God our concerns for his world, our local community and ourselves as a church.
But if you are just exploring the Christian faith, or you used to go to church but it was a long time ago, a church service might seem strange.
user friendly
Don't worry about not knowing what to do next. We don't have lots of different books or bits of paper which you have to juggle but we project everything on to a screen. We are informal and friendly - a user-friendly church which particularly welcome newcomers. We won't expect you to jump in the deep end without any floats. We explain what we are doing and why we are doing it.
family friendly
Our services are 'family-friendly' with a creche and Sunday School for younger members of our community. See the page on Children and Young People for more details.
Fairtrade coffee!
Fairtrade refreshments are served in the church lounge after the service, where there is also a bookstall and a number of videos (mainly for children) which can be borrowed.
Come and see what we are like. If we are not what you are looking for we will happily tell you (nice things!) about the other churches in the area.
We also have a Communion Service on a Sunday evening at 6.00pm once a month. This is a quiet reflective service. Please see the Calendar for the date of the next one.
Worship
risky business
Worship is at the heart of what we are about. It is in our worship together that we meet with God and God meets with us. We are changed and become more the people that we can be. Worship is exciting and powerful. It involves the risk of opening ourselves up to God and the risk that he might challenge us and change us.
meeting with God
The one thing that we cannot change, is what worship is about.
- it is about meeting with God
- it is about changing and growing as a person
- it is about being part of a community of people doing this together
- it involves encouragment and challenge, joy and confession, history and hope
If you come and join us for worship we hope that you won't feel left out because you don't know what is going on. But we know that at the beginning you might be exploring the Christian faith - sticking your toe in the water - and you might not be ready to sign up. Hence you might find that what we say and do doesn't yet include you. That is absolutely OK - there is never any pressure to participate more than you are able to, or want to. We particularly welcome people who are wanting to explore. We want you to have the chance to see what the Christian faith and Christian worship is all about, being a spectator if that is where you feel most comfortable.
modern
We passionately believe that the good news of God's love shown to us in Jesus is not just a message for the past. Faith and worship are just as relevant to the 21st century as to the 1st one. We try to reflect that in our worship where we
- use modern translations of the Bible and modern language in what we say
- choose modern songs and hymns (but not neglecting the rich heritage of hymns from previous generations)
- use modern techniques (such as Powerpoint) for presenting the service
- draw upon modern media - films, songs, art - to see how they relate to the Christian message
The worst thing that we can do is make worship - meeting with the living God - boring! We hope that we are not guilty of that!