Sunday services
Our Sunday morning service is at 11.00am, and our Sunday evening service is at 6.30pm, both held in-person at the church.
Our morning services regularly feature visiting speakers from outside the church – often representing mission organisations we support. Our evening services are more reflective and usually feature a Bible study led by one of the elders or others in the church.
We hope you'll find us to be friendly and welcoming. You probably won't notice any special "dress-code" – we think it's more important that you come to share fellowship and listen to God's word than it is to dress up in clothes you'd otherwise hardly ever wear! We're delighted if families want to join with us and we do our best to make sure that whether you're young or old, or anywhere in between, you'll feel welcome.
What to expect
Our service usually starts with a hymn or 2-3 shorter songs – we sing both traditional hymns and more modern worship songs during our services. We'll often then have a short talk that's intended to be accessible to all – young and old, long-term Christian or newcomer to the faith, after which we'll sing again. Then we usually read a Bible passage, and read out the notices for the week (what other meetings are happening, anything special coming up soon, particular concerns for prayer, and so on), and take up a collection. There is absolutely no obligation on anyone to give when the collection bag is passed around. Then, after another song, we have a longer talk – the sermon – when one of the elders, or a visiting speaker explains the relevance of the Bible to us today, and encourages us to apply the lessons we've learned to our daily lives. Then we sing again, and unless we're sharing communion, that's the end. Sometimes during the service, we'll recite a creed or confession together, to remind ourselves of the basics of what we believe about God, ourselves, and our relationship with him.
We celebrate communion (the Lord's Supper) every week, in either the morning or evening service. The usual pattern is that we share it together in the evening of the 1st, 3rd (and 5th) Sundays of the month, and in the morning of the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the month. Everyone who can honestly say they have been saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, and in particular by his death on the cross, is welcome to take communion with us. If you are not sure what you believe, or where you stand, then just let the bread and wine pass by – but do come and talk to one of the elders about it!
After the morning service, everyone is welcome to stay for refreshments in the back hall – tea, coffee & squash are always available, with biscuits. If it's someone's birthday, we might share a birthday cake with them. Most weeks, Daniela (Martin's wife) brings along a home-made cake, for which we ask for a £1 donation per piece. We recently used the money we raised that way to help buy the new chairs we're enjoying. Now we're saving up for something else that'll benefit us all!
"Do you live-stream your services?"
Currently, no, we are not regularly live-streaming our services. You can catch up on previous live-streamed Sunday morning services on our Online archive.