What are we like?

Whitefriars Church started in August 1991 as a children’s holiday club, and it has grown to be a lively, informal, all-age congregation – and became a full Church of England parish in its own right in 2008.  Please click here to see our Church growth action plan.

Children, young people and families continue to be fully at the heart of the church.  We run groups for all ages, not only on a Sunday, but also through the week.

However, the church is for all;  we run an active group for retired folk too!  There is also a large number of home groups for adults in the week, alongside a range of other activities – opportunities to explore and express faith and to be part of a friendly church community.

Whitefriars is informal in style.  We meet for worship in Whitefriars Primary School, where the original holiday club was run.  This makes it easier for many people to come to church who are unfamiliar with some of the aspects of more traditional services.  Our aim is for our worship to be unfussy and lively, but most importantly accessible and meaningful for all.

People describe Whitefriars as welcoming.  We certainly hope so!  Our aim is to show the love of Christ to all who come, and to live it out in all we do.

A key aspect of Whitefriars is that we aim to be a “church without walls” – easy for people to come and join us and to settle in.  But also easy for us to get out into the community, to serve the people around us, whether they are church members or not, showing them the love of Christ.

A key part of being a church without walls is our Stepping Out initiative – once a month we don’t have a Sunday service, but we try to get out into the community – our aim is to get out to serve people and to love them, rather than simply saying ‘come to us’.

For a copy of our church welcome leaflet, giving a flavour of who we are, plus contact details for more information please see the downloads section below.

We are a registered charity, Charity Number 1130312.