Welcome!!!
We are so glad you’ve found our webpage—whether you’ve been a Christian for decades, just starting out, or exploring, we hope you’ll experience a community of welcome and love, and a place that feels ‘a home away from home’.
The best place to start is often by popping along to one of our Sunday services at St Andrew’s—9 am (traditional Anglican with liturgy and communion) or 10.30 am (band-led sung worship, with separate children/youth provision). You don’t have to wear anything special! We don’t take a collection during our services. If you have any accessibility needs or requirements, please do speak to a member of our welcome team who will be on the door before the service. If you come, there’s no commitment to stay if you don’t feel comfortable, and we don’t keep a register of who attended—you are free to come and go, and just belong.
We have so much going on—on Sundays and throughout the week—and it can feel a bit overwhelming if you are just starting out. Please do email us and we can send you a welcome card to fill in so we can help you discover more. We use a GDPR-secure church admin software called ChurchSuite which you can sign up to if you want to receive regular news bulletins and updates about what’s going on.
What we believe
We are a ‘Word’ and ‘Spirit’ church community based in Churchdown, and part of the Anglican Diocese of Gloucester. We are a grace-filled and loving church community pursuing God’s heart for Churchdown, Gloucester, Cheltenham and beyond. We are a church where lives are changing through the movement of the gospel that brings personal conversion, community formation, social justice and cultural renewal.
We are a member church of the Evangelical Alliance, and align with their Basis of Faith. In light of this, we affirm:
Every person is fearfully and wonderfully made in God’s image and our choices and actions are informed by a reverence and respect for human life. God loves and cares for everyone in their physical, cultural and ethnic diversity; we are called to love everyone and treat them with dignity, mercy, compassion, kindness, humility and justice (Genesis 12:3; Leviticus 19:15; Deuteronomy 16:19, 24:17; Psalm 139:13‒16; Amos 5:24; Micah 6:8; John 15:12).
Jesus is good news and has commissioned His followers to go and make disciples. We are passionate about actively sharing the gospel and generously serving those in need (Matthew 25:35‒36, 28:16‒20; Acts 2:38; 1 Peter 3:15).
We are being discipled to love God, follow Jesus and respond to the Holy Spirit through regular prayer and worship, engaging with the Bible, participating in church and other spiritual disciplines. Our behaviour matters to God and impacts others and so we strive privately and publicly to live holy lives that honour Him and reflect His character (Mark 8:34‒38; John 14:15‒31; Ephesians 6:18; 1 Peter 1:13‒16; 2 Peter 1:3‒11).
We are God’s children, empowered by His Spirit, extending His Kingdom together. Through our whole-life discipleship, we affirm the value and importance of seeking to follow Jesus’ example, obeying His teachings, and dedicating our lives to the purposes of God (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4‒8, 2:38‒42; Ephesians 3:14‒19; 2 Corinthians 3:12‒18; 1 Peter 2:9).
God created human beings in His image, male and female, possessing equal value, made to glorify Him and together reflect His image. The human body in its given form, including biological sex, is an intrinsic part of human identity (Genesis 1:27; Genesis 2:23; Ephesians 5:21‒33; 1 Corinthians 6:19).
Friendship, family and marriage are gifts from God, designed for the flourishing of humanity and to glorify God. Sexual activity is a good gift from God that belongs exclusively within marriage between one man and one woman. God calls us to faithfulness within marriage and celibacy outside of it, and we seek to lovingly hold one another to these standards (Genesis 2:20‒24; Malachi 2:13‒16; Matthew 19:1‒12; John 15:12‒17; Romans 8:14‒17; 1 Corinthians 6:9‒10, 7:8‒16; Ephesians 5:21‒27; Revelation 19:6‒7, 21:1‒2).
God made the earth and entrusted humanity as its stewards and so we take seriously our responsibility to care for and cultivate His good creation knowing that God will make all things new (Genesis 1; Genesis 2:15; Psalm 8; Colossians 1:19‒20; Revelation 21:1‒5).
