In normal times, the main gathering of the whole church family is at our 10.30am Sunday morning service. This is informal in style with a good number of people involved in the leadership of the service; preaching, reading lessons, leading prayers, reflection and music and in the supportive areas of welcoming, operating the PA and audio-visual equipment and providing refreshments. Music is mainly contemporary in style, led by keyboard, guitar, wind instruments and singers as well as the regular use of our pipe organ to accompany more traditional hymns. Words of the worship songs, Bible passage and notes or illustrations to accompany the sermon are projected using ‘PowerPoint’. In addition to the minister, we have several members whose preaching and teaching gifts are used regularly. The sermon is recorded and uploaded onto our website immediately after the service so that the message can be accessed by folk unable to join us in person. Communion is incorporated into the service on a monthly basis. Short evening services of a more contemplational nature have also been held during Lent and Advent.
Midweek @ The Steeple offers a weekly lunchtime opportunity for fellowship and teaching including a short Bible reflection for anybody in the city centre, for work or leisure, at that time.
Our Café Church usually meets in the Sanctuary on a regular weekday evening, supporting a mixed community of regular attendees many of whom have had no previous church experience. Discussions, often on a topic introduced by a DVD presentation, provide an opportunity for people to openly discuss, voice opinions and ask questions about Christianity.
During the first period of COVID lockdown, from March to September 2020, The Steeple rapidly moved on-line, with a pre-recorded Service posted on our public YouTube channel each week. Between September and December 2020, as well as continuing with these, we re-opened the church building for live worship on Sunday mornings, offering two socially distanced, back-to-back short services, to allow space for as many as wished to join in worship in this way. When lockdown was re-imposed in December, we began worshipping together via Zoom. This was found to be a great success, with 60-70 folk on-line together each week.
After eighteen months of having to ‘do church differently’ during the pandemic, we recognise that going forward we have a responsibility, a challenge and an opportunity to think through and perhaps rediscover what it means to be ‘a worshipping Christian Community’ and to develop and curate congregational Worship that is relevant and ‘right’ for this new phase of the congregation’s journey.
