The easiest way to answer this is to talk about my own life. I was raised a catholic, and until the age of 18 would have gone to mass most Sundays. If any of you have ever gone to mass you’ll know it’s liturgical, involves some teaching from the priest, communion and some hymns. I am grateful for this upbringing, and as a local church in Brighton we see ourselves as part of the wider body of Christ called the church, and represented under lots of names – Catholic, Anglican, Pentecostal, Baptist etc.  Whilst it’s true there are all sorts of differences, at a very profound level we all believe the same thing. 

So with the establishing of our church we don’t want to throw away any of our Christian heritage, infact we want to embrace the best of it. It might be likened to cooking chicken. It can be roasted, stir fried, curried, eaten in a sandwich cold or a hundred other ways Delia or Jamie might invent! At the end of the day however it’s still chicken! One of the aims of our church is to welcome newcomers and people new to, or seeking after, God.   

So at the moment we do two very different kinds of service. If you came to our morning service you might find it somewhat different to our evening service. In the future we might also do a more strongly liturgical church service. Why? Because we want a church that reaches people, and we come increasingly from different cultures, as well as coming in all different shapes and sizes! I love that. One of the things you can say about our church is that it eclectic. We have people from differing socio-economic groups, cultures, age groups etc. That is the way church is meant to be.

If you know anything about the biographies of Jesus you might know there are four of them, written by different men.  Many commentators think we have four biographies because as human beings we are all different, so Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote their biographies to reach slightly different people groups.  You also might hear words like evangelical (this means we believe the Bible in its entirety is Gods word to us) or charismatic (we believe in the power of the Holy Spirit). We firmly believe that Catholics are our brothers and sisters as are Anglicans, Pentecostals, Baptists and others.  These are only denominational words, and so often used to divide us. 

We hold to all the ancient creeds and catechisms of the historic church, as well as embracing the newer expressions of Christianity of which, of course, we are a part. 

The best thing I want any one of us to say about our church is not that we are Vineyard, or anything else, but rather to say that we are simply “Christians”.

Chris Simmons, Senior Pastor