Sunday services

We have three Sunday services: 8:00am, 10:30am and 7:00pm

8:00am

The 8:00am service is a quiet Holy Communion using the traditional words of the Book of Common Prayer (BCP). We gather in the chancel of the church to take part in this 45 minute service without music and the peaceful atmosphere is very conducive to spiritual reflection.

10:30am

"The most important thing is that everyone feels welcomed and leaves having met with God."

 

This is our main service of the week and takes the form of Morning Worship (Common Worship) except for the fourth Sunday each month when we have a service of Holy Communion. All the family join together for the start of the service. The first 10 minutes can be somewhat lively, with plenty of participation from everyone, adults and children alike! After this part of the service the children leave to go to 'The Ark' or 'Promiseland'.

It is during the first part of the service that Baptisms take place. The whole congregation joins together to welcome the infant/child/adult into the family of the Church. The youngest children are invited to the front to see the individual baptised. Having these young people witnessing the event always seems to highlight that all members of the church are important and reflects the genuinely inclusive, gospel centred ethos of Christ Church.

Once the children have departed to their groups, the service often takes on a more reflective air. The service has the usual elements of praise, prayers, bible readings and the offering all culminating in the delivering of the sermon. The sermon is about 20 minutes, it is always stimulating, sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, sometimes dynamic as we seek to know God better and to grow as disciples of Jesus.

Every every six weeks or so the children stay in church rather than depart to their normal groups and participate in a "Family Service". This service is usually a little shorter. At Christ Church we are very much aware of the balance to be struck between making the children really feel part of the congregation and of ensuring adults encounter God is ways appropriate for them too. The service is structured to meet these aims.

The morning service over, the congregation continues to meet over fresh tea and coffee in the church.

7:00pm

At the 7:00pm service, the emphasis is on a less formal, contemporary and more interactive type of worship and the service is conducted from the dais. The service is projected, so we don't use paper we don't need to.

There is sometimes an opportunity in the service for members of the congregation to tell from their personal experience of how God has worked in their lives. This is purely voluntary but sharing experiences in this way reminds us that God is as active, interested and relevant today as He was in the past and will be in the future.

There is emphasis on sung worship at this service using a mix of contemporary and traditional songs. The singing is accompanied by the guitar, piano and sometimes drums and is sometimes led by the young people of the Church.

The basic elements of evening worship are here: prayers and bible readings read by members of the congregation, an expository or topical talk based on a bible reading by one of the clergy and times of silence to reflect and acknowledge God's presence. Every second Sunday of the month we celebrate Holy Communion together and our young people regularly take a more active role in the running of the service, performing sketches, reading bible passages and relating how God has affected their lives.

At the end of the service members of our prayer ministry team are available to pray with people.

In the evening we have Holy Communion on the second Sunday of each month.