What to expect on a Sunday morning...

If you join us on a Sunday morning at Loch Road, by the time we begin at 10.30am you'll usually be part of a group of around 20 or so people gathered in our lounge room. Our hope is you will find us to be informal and conversational, a bit like joining a group of folk sitting in someone's lounge at home (though we don't have any sofas at the moment - maybe we could work on that). 

If you join us and have children with you, we hope the informal style means you will feel comfortable for the children to stay with you. We're certainly fine with that. There's plenty of floor space in the lounge where we meet and the floor is carpeted. If it's helpful we can always rustle up some things from our store of toddler group play equipment. 
We don't mind interruptions. We tend to get those anyway, from our more senior folk.

We are delighted and thankful to be able to make the most of our big building at Loch Road by sharing it in partnership with other local churches, one of which also meets on Sunday mornings (from 10am). If you are looking for us, just ask for the Baptist church (or "the church in the lounge") and folk at the door will help to you find us. It also means there is a real buzz when we all join together for tea, coffee and conversation from around 11.45am.
We also meet occasionally for worship, prayer and learning together, so do feel free to check here to see our plans for the next few Sundays. 

So, what happens from 10.30?

We take time to pray together at several points during our time when we meet.
These prayers tend to form the 'rhythm' for our gatherings.

• We begin by committing ourselves and our time with one another to God.
• We confess our shared need of God's forgiveness, mercy and grace. 
• We uphold one another, our neighbourhoods, and the nations to God.
• We end by commending and sending one another into lives of service to God.   

We read part of the Bible together and help one another to better understand, learn from and respond to what we've read.  At the moment we are working through John's Gospel. 
(You can check in here to see where we've got to in John's Gospel. There are some short catch-up videos available here.)

Sometimes our learning together will be through a talk or sermon. Sometimes it will be more like a discussion or study. More often than not it will be a mix of both approaches, so that we take time to learn from one another. We always encourage folk to pose questions when there is something they want to ask.

We usually provide opportunities to share how we have noticed God at work since we last met, whether that's in us or around us in our neighbourhood. We recognise this is a way we can find common expression in our life of faith. We draw encouragement from one another as we share the life of faith together.  

We also like to sing together, drawing from a mix of songs and hymns written and composed across a wide span of time. In line with the informal setting, we tend to keep things fairly simple when we sing. There's usually a guitar, maybe a melody instrument. 
Choices and style are informed more by what and why we are singing, rather than how it might sound. Sometimes we'll just share in reading the words of a song together, a bit like a prayer-poem. 

We usually try to make our time together as multi-voiced as possible. 
Silence is something we try not to worry about. There is never a requirement to say something, but we find we are blessed and encouraged by one another as we do!

Why do we gather together like this?

Well, the short answer to that is we're a relatively small group on a Sunday morning, and meeting this way means we don't have to try and act as if we are a bigger church. 

The longer answer is that it's our way of putting into practice some of what we read in these sentences from a letter written to one of the earliest churches...

Christ's message in all its richness must live in your hearts. Teach and instruct one another with all wisdom. Sing psalms, hymns, and sacred songs; sing to God with thanksgiving in your hearts. 
(Letter to the Colossians 3:16)

Whenever you take the time to join us, we hope you will be able to relax and feel at home. Whether you have been here many times, or it's your first time here, join in as much or as little as you like.