My New Church

Well, it seems that I have found a church to settle at, a happy event indeed. Keep an eye for my discoveries while hunting in the new edition of the Tasmanian Anglican, in your local church this weekend (14th Feb).

It's a rather quieter service that Resonate, but in the end that seemed irrelevant. I was praying that God would show me where to go, and my thoughts kept returning to this church. I went a second time last night (after much deliberation over whether to go to a new service, or back there), and felt very much at home - there's a really good sense of genuine community, and the vibe is that of a big family, where comfort and support is more important that flashiness. Last night, I felt like I'd found home and as though I was just meant to be there.

The evening service is like a standard 10am service - follows prayer book orders of service, with communion about once a month. Not all the standy sitty recite bits in unison are done - just some of the standard responses to prayers and readings, although I suspect this probably changes week to week. The music is not as band-like as at Resonate - much more ... umm... acoustic, and a little older. Lots of 1990s Stuart Townend and Matt Redman, plus a few hymns and other assorted composers.

The preaching roster is made up of a few different people, plus extras who are giving it a go for the first time; last night a woman preached on the end of Ecclesiastes. It was a good sermon, very interesting. The next couple of weeks are looking at Song of Songs, followed by Mark.

After the service I got chatting to a few people in the tea queue (these Brits, they really do love their queues). There was much excitement as I filled out a yellow card - the official way of joining the church. Hehe. There is youth stuff going on. If I remember correctly 0(ish) to 14 year olds have a program during the morning service, and 14-18 year olds during the evening service.

I was a bit worried about what would happen this week after church - the week when I was new and knew nobody would be ok, because people would either talk or completely ignore the totally new face. But this time I knew a few people by face, but not enough just to jump in to a group and start a conversation. My back up plan was to just start introducing myself to people in a kind of backwards welcome thing. But as I should have trusted, God put people around to talk to me, so I was entertained for the entire period from end of service to go to Bible study time, and didn't have to stand awkwardly at all.

This church has an evening Bible study/social time for young adults, at someone's house across the road. They're working through Judges at the moment, and the two times I've been we've looked at the story of Gideon. This group was one of the reasons I felt quite at home at the church - it's a mix of students, young workers and others. It's a very comfortable group, much like any normal eclectic group of Christians. I think it's a mixture of some people from another church - the study leader is the assistant pastor elsewhere.

So overall it's a nice church. I went somewhere else in the morning, and liked it, but my mind just kept coming back to this one. The service is in the evening - a rarity for Norwich apparently, which suits me so much better. It's about 10 minutes away on the bus, and when I get a bike I'll be able to stay out later than about 11pm (last bus). The actual building is very pretty, I don't know when it was built, but it's tall and rather grand looking. It's Anglican (the only Anglican church I've visited... Except St Peter Mancroft where I heard Evensong), so it's familiar. The denomination wasn't a deciding factor, just happened that way.

Oh and it's called Holy Trinity.