Our Sunday morning service starts at 10:30am and finishes at around mid-day, after which you are most welcome to stay and talk over a free cup of tea or coffee.
Since Christians began meeting together almost 2000 years ago it has been normal to meet together at least once a week on a Sunday. There are many reasons that this is important, not least of which is the opportunity to learn more about God and his plan for our lives as we study the Bible together. In the book of Acts (chapter 2, verse 42) we are told that the early Christians continued doing four things in particular;
- They continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine (that is what was believed by Jesus’ disciples)
- They continued to fellowship with each other (they knew it was important to meet with others who believed the same)
- They continued to break bread (they continued to share communion with each other, as Jesus had commanded them to)
- They continued to pray (both talking to, and listening to God)
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. Acts 2:42
These four things are key for any church today, and so we take care to continue in these things too – as well as taking time to praise and worship God. There are a variety of meetings at DCF and some include all these things – some focus more on a specific reason for meeting.
What you can expect at our Sunday morning service
Each Sunday we meet at 10:30am, and most folks arrive around 10:15am. You can be sure of a warm welcome, and at 10:30am we begin with a time of praise where we sing to God – thanking and praising Him for all He has done for us. The time of worship is led by the DCF music team and we sing both modern worship songs based on the Bible (from song writers such as Chris Tomlin, Phil Wickham, Scott Cunningham, Hillsong, Kari Jobe etc) and also older hymns (such as well known hymns like Amazing grace, How great Thou art, What a friend we have in Jesus etc). The style of music is best described as contemporary, but not raucous – with acoustic and electric guitars, drums, bass, and keyboard, as well as vocals.
Following our time of praise we take a moment to thank God for His provision for our needs as church family through faithful giving, and that He would guide us how best to use those resources.
Next, in addition to weekly notices about upcoming events, we share the prayer requests for that week from and for our church family, before taking time to pray for those things. Each week we also pray for the needs of another Calvary Chapel church in the UK (a different church each week).
The children under 11 then head out to their Sunday school classes (ages 3 and up) with the Sunday school teachers, or to the creche (0-3 years) with their parents while the youth and adults continue with a time of prayer, and a short time of praise followed by our weekly Bible study usually taught by our pastor which lasts for around 40 minutes – all our recent studies and more can be found from the teaching menu at the top of each page.
We end our services with a short time of praise (usually a single song) and prayer and then spend time together with each other (we like to call it our church family) for a while over tea/coffee and a biscuit or two. There’s no set time that the doors are closed, but typically the service finishes around noon and everyone leaves for home by around 1pm.
We would love to see you at our Sunday morning service and there is no dress code to follow as such – everyone dresses as they feel is appropriate and/or comfortable.
More about our time of Bible study
We believe it is really important to understand what the Bible says – after all there is a reason that God has given it to us, and that is as our instruction manual for life. The Bible is a collection of books (66 in total) that we believe were written under inspiration directly from God, and so we take the time to study each book chapter by chapter, verse by verse – which means we have to study the difficult and challenging parts as well as the easy parts too. We started doing this as a church around 10 years ago, and we’re not done yet – but once we’ve studied it all we will begin again.
We are currently studying the Bible book of Genesis on Sunday mornings, and you can find our recent studies here, along with Bible studies taught over the years at DCF.
Communion
On the first Sunday of each month we celebrate the communion just as Jesus told us to do to remember Him and what he has done for us in dying in our place on the cross. Anyone is welcome to celebrate with us – we don’t have a church membership, a process or piece of paper you need to sign to be able to do this – though the Bible does warn that it should be done sincerely and with a right heart toward God. We don’t offer communion to those under secondary school age, but instead pray for/with them.
Still have questions?
If you have any questions please feel free to get in touch with us – we’ll respond as quickly as we can.