The United Reformed Church in Chappel

We meet for worship The Chapel on Rose Green What we believe every Sunday at 6.30pm (Colchester Road - A1124) Holy Communion second Sunday each month We are a mainstream Christian Congregation. Baptisms, weddings and funerals by arrangement Our faith and our worship while rooted in Open to God with our Minister tradition, aims to be living and relevant to today’s Open to each other The Chapel premises are available for hire world with its varied issues and challenges. We contact the Secretary Open to the community believe in God revealed supremely in Jesus Christ; we treasure the inspired writings of the Bible and the work of the Holy Spirit in empowering Contacts Welcome . . . our lives as Christian people. We do not regularly Secretary recite creeds but we affirm broad statements of Anthony Percival The URC in Chappel is a place where you faith and church order, following the Christian tel: 01206 240442 will find a warm welcome and a heritage of liturgical calendar but not normally following e-mail: [email protected] Protestant Reformed Church worship. A place of set forms of worship. We respect the conscience friendship where tradition and new ideas mix, a of the individual believer in our search for God Minister place where all may find something to strengthen together. Local decisions about our Church are The Rev’d Kenneth M Forbes and refresh their lives made by the Elders, and at quarterly church tel: 01206 547920 RGP 7/2019 meetings by those who worship regularly. e-mail: [email protected] . . . A place for you were greatly increased after 1662 by following How we began clergy who were ejected from their Anglican Part of a worldwide The roots of the United Reformed Church in churches for refusing to conform to the Act of fellowship Chappel, one of hundreds of similar churches Uniformity for worship. across the country, are in the 16th century English Since 1972, Chappel Congregational Church Church Reformation. Some Christians, later known Our kind of church has been part of the United Reformed Church, as Independents or Congregationalists, wanted to Nonconformist congregations grew all over the a coming together of Congregational, English reform the Church in England. Their numbers country, despite persecution. It was not until 1830 Presbyterian and the former denomination that nonconformists had won recognition and could known as the Churches of Christ in a scheme of enter the professions and the universities and gain union in England and Wales. Subsequently some their civil liberty. They became known for their Congregational Churches in Scotland became part preaching and actionin support of people’s welfare, of the United Reformed Church. The URC is part education and civil liberties. of the World Communion of Reformed Churches. We here are linked with Lion Walk and Christ Nine local christians Church United Reformed Churches, Colchester, Chappel’s Independent Congregation began as through the oversight of the Minister. recently as 1901, when nine local people met to We meet for worship every Sunday at 6.30pm, and start a Free Church in the village and rented and celebrate Holy Communion monthly. Our worship converted a former builder’s storeroom, which style is traditional. ‘Coffee and Chat’ and Bible was later bought, and Study are also held monthly. extended. Worship and fellowship has continued Baptisms, weddings and funerals by arrangement with on Rose Green ever since the Minister. We play an active part in the life of the and the Chapel has in the village and community. We aim to be a welcoming, past held a flourishing accepting and inclusive fellowship of people. Sunday school, a youth group, and women’s Our music and prayer groups. The premises were The Chapel has a fine small pipe organ, registered completely refurbished as of national historical importance, and is known for the Centenary in locally for the quality of its music and enthusiastic 2001. hymn-singing.

Our hope It is our hope that all who come will find friendliness and openness, and something of the love, peace and presence of God