What Happens When We Meet?

If you’re not used to going to church, you might like to know what to expect at Emmanuel Church.

As you arrive you’ll be personally welcomed, given a programme sheet and shown where to get a coffee. You will notice a real mixture of ages and types of people milling around.

Some people will be getting ready, lots will be just chatting in our café area.

After a while, the meeting itself will begin. We try to make it varied, interesting, and enjoyable for people of all ages and backgrounds. There are formal and informal elements. It’s lively without being weird or over the top! You can always find out where we are in the service and what’s next by following the programme sheet.

All ages are together as we begin. Most weeks of the month, children and young people go out to their own groups after about 15-20 minutes. We all meet up again about an hour later, at the end of the meeting. (At the monthly All Age Service, we all stay together for the whole time.)

The whole point of our meeting is to get to know God better so we can appreciate him more and discover more about how he wants us to live as Christians in the modern world. So listening to the Bible being read and then explained to us is at the heart of our meeting. The talk usually lasts about 25 minutes.

There are some bits of the service where most people say words together. These are all printed out on the programme sheet, and if there are bits you don’t agree with, it’s fine just to keep quiet. No-one will notice or mind.

Christians love to sing about who God is, and what he’s done for us. Our songs are contemporary in feel, and led by a music group of willing volunteers, singing and playing various instruments including - depending on the week - keyboard, guitar, saxophone, flute, and drums. You may not know the tunes, but it doesn’t take long to pick them up. Or you can just listen, if you’d prefer.

Someone will lead some prayers.

When the meeting is over, there’s more coffee or tea, and usually some cakes! You’ll find that people often stay around for quite a long time chatting. We hope that you will feel comfortable to stay too and introduce yourself to someone near you.

If you think there are things we could have done better, then write us an e-mail afterwards and let us know. It matters to us that we make the whole experience as enjoyable and interesting for you as possible.