St Nic's: Living on the edge with Jesus

New to St Nic’s?

If you’ve never been to a church like St Nic’s before, you may well be wondering just what sort of things happen in a service, and what, if anything, might be expected of you.

We are quite relaxed at St Nic’s and we don’t expect you to join in with anything that makes you feel uncomfortable. If you want to join in with the singing and other responses, that’s great, but if all you want to do is sit and watch, that’s fine too. It’s also worth saying that at some point in the service we will have the “offertory” — a blue bag is passed around for members of the church to put money into as their gift to the church. You as a visitor are not expected to put anything in, so just pass it along to the person next to you.

Our 9.00am service is fairly traditional and finishes by 10.00am. Most families come to the 10.30am service, which is about an hour and a half long and at which a crèche is available. In the evening, there is “sunday@seven” (beginning at 7.00pm but with worship starting from 6.45pm), which finishes around 8.45pm. You can always slip out before the end if you want to. There is more information about services here.

When you arrive at St Nic’s (directions here) you’ll enter through the large red door nearest the road. Most people arrive up to about 10 minutes before the start of the service. You will have more chance of parking outside the church if you arrive early. On the way in, someone should greet you and give you a notice sheet. You won’t actually need this during the service — all of the words appear on screens. If you find the screens hard to read, make yourself known to one of the stewards who will usually be able to provide you with a large-print copy of the words. There is full wheelchair access to the main church building and we have a wheelchair-accessible toilet. If you have any other accessibility needs, let us know and we will do our best to help.

After the service you could just quietly leave, but we’d love you to stick around for a bit and introduce yourself to a few of us. Tea and coffee are served between the 9.00am and 10.30am services and after “sunday@seven”. A group of us often gather in one of the pubs across the road after the evening service.

Our services usually begin with some sung worship. This is a way of declaring truths about our awesome God, and of saying how much we love him. It is usually led by a band — singers, keyboard, guitar, drums, etc — and most of the songs are reasonably easy to pick up. Occasionally, we even sing hymns!

We also pray together, listen to a couple of short readings from the Bible, and hear a sermon. In some services we have “communion”, a part of the service where we remember the sacrifice that Jesus made for us by dying on the cross. The bread and wine that we share are symbols of this. If you already know and love the Lord Jesus, you are most welcome to share the bread and wine with us. If that isn’t you, you are still welcome to come up for a prayer of blessing — just follow the directions of the stewards, and keep your hands down by your side so you don’t accidentally get passed the bread and wine.