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 Tradition
Our worship is respectful of tradition, and has evolved through time. We are very aware of the fact that through our liturgy we worship God through words and in forms that would be recognised by many of the early Christians. Our worship is participative in nature: with the congregation taking an active role in parts of the liturgy, and individual members leading us in prayer and reading the lessons. On the first and third Sunday of each month, Sunday School is run in parallel with the 10:15am service, with the children returning to the church for the communion.
Liturgy
At St Michael and All Saints, our lives of faith are fed by the liturgy and nourished by prayer. Our liturgy is sometimes described as “high Church”, because it is full of rich language, music, and ritual, accompanied by the senses and sounds of incense and church bells.
We aim to make this both accessible to all those who come to our worship and a means for all to worship individually as well as collectively. So for example our hymn book is Hymns Old and New, containing a rich palette of traditional and modern songs of praise, and our order of service is taken from Common Worship to make it familiar to anyone acquainted with modern Anglican foms of church service. The one exception is our monthly Choral Evensong, which uses the traditional 1928 Book of Common Prayer as its basis. Many people find the older style of wording comforting and uplifting in a way that contemporary language cannot match.
Worship and Community
We are inclusive in our worship in that all our senses are used to express the beauty of Holiness - and we hope to leave our worship renewed in the hope that the Holy Spirit will guide us to recognise God’s image in all whom we meet and with whom we spend time.
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