Special, changed or cancelled services will appear here. Also check the NEWS page for information about special events. The service on Remembrance Sunday always starts at 10.15am not the usual 10.30am. Christmas and Easter services will be shown as special events at the appropriate time of the year.
ON THIS PAGE
1 Normal Monthly Rota : Our normal monthly rota of service times.
2 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th Sundays : 10.30am Parish Communion
3 4th Sunday : 8.00am Holy Communion - 10.30am Mattins & Family Worship - 6.30pm Evensong
4 Wednesday : 9.30am Holy Communion
5 About our Services : General information about our services and service books of the Church of England
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SUNDAY |
8.00am |
9.30am |
10.30am |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | |||
| 2nd | Parish Communion C.W. (sung) |
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| 3rd | Parish Communion C.W. (sung) |
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| 4th | |||
5th |
Parish Communion C.W. (sung) |
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| WEDNESDAY | Holy Communion C.W.(said) Lady Chapel |
B.C.P. - Book of Common Prayer
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SUNDAY 10:30am PARISH COMMUNION SERVICE
The main 10.30am Sunday service is a sung Communion from the Book of Common Worship (not the fourth Sunday). During this service there is a Sunday school and crèche (see the YOUNG CHURCH page). The children leave the main service after the first hymn and gather in the vestry, to return in time for communion. We always have a robed choir during this service accompanied by the organ. Usually the choir will sing an anthem during or after communion. The service is usually about hour long.
There is a collection in the middle part of the service.
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SUNDAY 8:00am 4th SUNDAY ONLY
On the fourth Sunday of the month there is no communion service at 10:30am. The main service that day is Mattins. Instead we have a Holy Communion service at 8:00am which is held in the Lady Chapel. Although this is taken from the book of Common Worship it follows the traditional Holy Communion service from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. It is a said service, very quite and peaceful, with only a very small congregation.
Also there is always an 8:00am Holy Communion on Easter Sunday and Christmas Day
There is a collection during the service.
SUNDAY 10:30am 4th SUNDAY ONLY - MATTINS & FAMILY WORSHIP
MATTINS
The main service on the fourth Sunday is Mattins (also known as Morning Prayer), from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. For this reason we have a Holy Communion service at 8:00am.
There is a collection during Mattins.
FAMILY WORSHIP
Also on the fourth Sunday, at the same time as Mattins we have a Family Service which is held in St. Nicolas' School (across the Green from the church).
Family Worship is a very informal and especially for children and their parents. It provides an introduction to 'coming to church'.
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Every Wednesday we have a service of Holy Communion at 9:30am. This is a said service from the book of Common Worship which closely follows the old 1662 Book of Common Prayer service. Very peaceful attended by just a small group and held in the Lady Chapel on the south side of the church.
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LADY CHAPEL ALTAR
We try to maintain a quiet and dignified atmosphere to our worship. The robed Choir and organist attend all 10.30am and Evensong services and all officients are robed.
If you are unable to come to the high altar and would like to take communion please let a Sidesman or Churchwarden know before the service starts, so that we can come down and administer to you. After our 10.30am service we stay for fresh coffee, a biscuit and a chat. Please stay if you can - speak to a Churchwarden and they will tell you all about life at St. Nicolas and introduce you to some new friends.
If you are to be married in St. Nicolas and have come to hear your Banns read please stay after the service and have coffee. You can have a look round the church talk to the clergy and the organist about music for your wedding and meet some of us! We know it can be a bit daunting if you are not regular church-goers - someone will spot you and make you feel welcome.
In the Church of England, those who lead worship are bound to use only those forms of service that are authorized or allowed by the Church of England's canon law.
The Church of England has two different but complementary sets of services: the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and Common Worship.
The 1662 Book of Common Prayer is a permanent feature of the Church of England's worship. It is loved for the beauty of its language and its services are widely used. It is also the foundation of a tradition of common prayer and a key source of the Church of England's doctrine.
The first official liturgical text in English appeared in 1544 and the first complete Book of Common Prayer in 1549. The book went through several revisions until 1662, since when the wording of its services has remained unchanged.
The services which it contains - especially Morning and Evening Prayer and Holy Communion - are still used (with minor modifications or additions) in many churches throughout the country.
It has served as a model and inspiration for worship throughout the rest of the Anglican Communion. It is also one of the three 'historic formularies' of the Church of England, in which its doctrine is to be found (the other two - the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion and the Ordinal - are customarily published in the same volume). It cannot be altered or abandoned without the approval of Parliament.
Some of the services from The Book of Common Prayer also appear in Common Worship, presented as they are commonly used today and in a more modern layout.
HIGH ALTAR
Common Worship supplements the Book of Common Prayer with services and prayers in diverse styles. Most of the material is in contemporary language, but some of the services are based on those in the Book of Common Prayer, incorporating adaptations and additions that have become customary over the years.
The services and resources that comprise Common Worship represent the latest stage of a process of liturgical revision which began in the 1920s.
The Church of England, like other Christian churches, felt the need to produce liturgies that drew on the latest fruits of historical scholarship and at the same time met the pastoral needs of the times.
An attempt to revise The Book of Common Prayer came to an end in 1928, when Parliament rejected the proposals. Most of The 1928 Prayer Book services were eventually authorized for use in public worship in 1966 - some in amended form - as the First Series of Alternative Services.
Some of the 'Series One' services continue to be authorized for use in public worship although some do not and a period of experimentation with further Alternative Services (Series Two and Three) began in the mid-1960s and found its fruition in the publication of The Alternative Service Book 1980. The Series Three services used contemporary English for the first time.
The ASB was authorized first for ten years and then for a further ten, but from 2000 it was replaced by a new generation of services, under the title Common Worship, which draws together the best of modern liturgy and the tradition of worship stemming from the The Book of Common Prayer.
The services were originally drafted by the Liturgical Commission. The Commission is made up of a variety of people with different expertise, including lay people, parish clergy and bishops, liturgists and theologians. The material was passed on to the House of Bishops, which amended the material as it saw fit. It was then presented to the General Synod.
Most of the Common Worship services are in a modern idiom, with vibrant images that seek to connect the Biblical tradition with people's own experiences. A key concept is that of the Christian life as a journey - one in which those as yet uncommitted to the faith are also invited to join.
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