Worship At St John's Church
Here you’ll find information about the worship at St John’s, including the kinds of services we offer and what you can expect when you join us for a service. Please click the buttons below to navigate the page.
What is worship?
When you see the word worship, you might think of singing, prayer, Bible readings, or Holy Communion. Worship is all of these things, and also so much more. Worship is the turning of our attention from the day-to-day activities in our lives towards God. We focus our attention on God. We stop singing songs from the charts; we sing hymns of praise to God. We stop being overwhelmed by worry and anxiety; we bring our needs to God. We stop eating ordinary food; we eat from the Lord’s Table, his Body and his Blood.
In worship, we come to meet God, and God meets us. At St John’s, our worship is centred around the Eucharist – also called the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, or Mass. This is the particular way that we worship God – by taking ordinary bread and wine and offering them to God, and receiving back from God the extraordinary truth that Jesus is really present with us.
Every time we gather at St John’s to worship God, we join in with the worship of the Church in every time and every place, from the Angels’ song to the Shepherds on the hill outside Bethlehem, to the choir of the Saints in heaven; from the most grand and elaborate Cathedral service, to the most humble Eucharist celebrated by a bedside. Worship isn’t just in the here and now. In worship, we bring heaven and earth together.
Worship is at the heart of the church’s life, and it is from our worship that all our other ministry flows. Worshipping God does not stop on a Sunday morning; through daily prayer, Bible study, and fellowship we find more time in our weeks to focus on God. Worship both teaches us and strengthens us to offer all of our work and lives to God, to proclaim the love of Jesus in everything we do.
What to expect
Our worship is in the ‘inclusive/modern Catholic’ tradition of the Church of England. We have a diverse team of clergy and lay people who take part in our worship. We include and affirm everyone: from our clergy to our readers, anyone who feels called to take on a role in our worship is welcome to do so, regardless of race, gender, sexuality, age, or any other part of their God-given identity. Both male and female priests regularly celebrate Holy Communion. Our team of altar servers is drawn from the young people in our congregation.
Our worship is structured around the Church of England’s Common Worship Order 1. This is the most common order of service, and so our worship should be recognisable if you’ve come from another Church of England church. We wear robes, and use music, candles, bells, and incense to mark out our actions and words as sacred – different from our usual words and actions.
We begin by singing a hymn. Hymns are songs directed to God, and often tell stories, or praise God for his goodness. There are several other points in our service where we sing hymns. Our hymns are a mixture of older and modern songs, accompanied by an organ and amateur choir.
Next, we remind ourselves that our first duty is to love God, and love our neighbour. We acknowledge when we have failed to do that; when we have sinned. We bring our guilt and shame before God, and are assured of God’s forgiveness. As the forgiven people of God, we then sing God’s praises in the words of the Gloria, an ancient hymn of praise used throughout the world.
We then hear readings from the Old and New Testaments, and from the Gospels. These readings contain stories, teachings, and instructions from the authors of the Bible, and we hear a sermon exploring how and why those words are useful in our lives today. Our sermons, lasting for around 10-12 minutes, also remind us of the love of God and are an opportunity for us to explore our faith more deeply.
We then recite the Creed, a series of statements about what we believe about God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. After reminding ourselves who God is and his power, we offer prayers of intercession to God. In these prayers, led from the front, we give thanks to God for his goodness towards us, and ask for God’s help in all places of suffering and sorrow, and for his help in our communities, families, and our own lives.
Then we come to the summit of our worship: Holy Communion. Also called the Eucharist – which means thanksgiving – we recall how on the night before Jesus died, he had supper with his friends. He took bread and wine, and gave it to his disciples saying ‘Take, eat and drink. This is my Body and my Blood, broken and shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.’ We obey Jesus’ commandment to ‘Do this in remembrance’ of him. In the Eucharist, we offer bread and wine to God, and God uses these ordinary gifts to become really present with us. In the Eucharist, we join this moment with the moment Christ died on the Cross, the moment he burst from the tomb on the first Easter morning, and every moment throughout all of time, past, present, and future, when Holy Communion is celebrated.
Having been fed by Christ’s Body and Blood, we then go out into the world with God’s blessing. Strengthened by our act of worship, we go into the world to proclaim the love of Jesus for our world in everything we say and do, until we meet in church again.
Our Services
St John’s currently offers three services during the week.
Our Parish Eucharist at 10:30 on a Sunday morning is the time the whole church gathers together to worship God in word and sacrament. The service involves hymns, readings, a sermon. It lasts for roughly 1 hour 15 minutes, and is followed by refreshments. From time to time, there is also a Sunday School in this service.
Morning Prayer is a 45-minute service of prayer and readings, at 9 a.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays.