What is Christianity all about?

The heart of the Christian message is love. The 'Good News' is that God has shown his love for us all through Jesus. He has made it possible for us to become God's friends. Jesus particularly showed God's love for us by his death upon the cross. Jesus calls us to turn away from selfishness and accept God's forgiveness. He calls us to love God and to love other people and tell them about him. We all have to decide whether to say 'yes' to God. Millions of people throughout the ages have found that friendship with God is what gives meaning and purpose to their lives. If you have not already done so we ask you to join us and begin getting to know God and experience his presence in your life.

What is the purpose of the Church?

The Church exists to encourage us to know God and express our love for him through worship. We need to support and encourage each other in our journey of faith and through the difficulties of everyday life. Church people are disciples of Jesus and seek with God's help to grow more like Jesus. We try to work together to express our love for other people by serving them and telling them about Jesus.

We believe it is God's will that his people worship together and proclaim God's love together. Whenever we meet together to break the bread and proclaim the 'Good News' we are strengthened and encouraged by the presence of Jesus.

Who is God?

We believe that God has shown himself to us as:

• beyond us - The Father who created the universe.
• beside us - Jesus Christ who is our Lord and Saviour.
• within us - The Holy Spirit who is at work in his people making them more like Jesus.

The idea of the one God being a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is not something we can fully understand. God would not be God if we could fully understand him. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity witnesses to the abiding majesty and mystery of love revealed to us in Jesus Christ and made known to each generation by the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

What is prayer?

Prayer is being aware of God's presence with us. It can involve speaking to him or just meditating upon him. Some of us use the acronym ACTS to guide us in our prayers:

Adoration - We praise God for who he is.
Confession - We say we are sorry for not always living as he wants us to.
Thanksgiving - We say thank you to God for all he has given to us.
Supplication - We ask God to help other people and to help us.

We believe God calls us to work with him and the communication we experience with him in prayer is vital to being disciples of Jesus.

What is the Bible?

The Bible is a collection of Jewish and early Christian writings. The most important parts of the Bible for Christians are the four Gospels which tell us about the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus.

We take the Bible seriously at St Thomas's by reflecting together on its meaning for contemporary life. We believe we need to look for the important principles of the Bible rather than taking each individual detail and applying it literally.

As we read the Bible together and as individuals God is able to speak to us through what we read. Many of us read the Bible every day and some of us find help from the daily Bible study notes produced by the Bible Reading Fellowship or Scripture Union.