"Ante-communion" or "prayer and praise" are ways of describing the service we engage in each Sunday on Zoom together. Celebrating the traditional service of Communion, as you'd be likely to find if you walked into any Anglican Church on a Sunday morning, we have the usual structure for our time together including:
- Gathering in God's Name
- Confession and Absolution
- The Ministry of the Word
- The Greeting of Peace
- The Prayers of the People
- The Sending out of God's People
The main difference for our service is that instead of celebrating the sacrament of The Great Thanksgiving + The Breaking of Bread and Communion we have Devotions which take us deeper into contemplative reflection. Centred around the message of the day from scripture, often inspired by the writings or teachings of the Holy Hermits of History, the Devotions are sourced ecumenically (meaning they could be from other Church traditions as well as Anglican) and offer us a chance to gently grow in connection with God and community.
You can access our Orders of Service from our past gatherings on the Sermons page by visiting the relavent week and downloading the slides from under 'Sermon Notes'. (You can also use our search bar to type in liturgical titles of weeks E.G. "23rd Week after Pentecost, 2nd week of Easter" to easily find one)
Under downloads (below) there are several documents detailing some of the serving roles.
We usually begin gathering at 8.45am for our welcome pre-worship space and often linger after worship for Fellowship.
Our after-worship space can be used to unpack the message, reflect together on the liturgy, witness what is going on for our folk at present and sometimes pray together out of what is shared.
The beauty of Zoom gathering is that our participants can choose to have their camera on or off, speak using their microphone or remain muted, join in for a short time or the whole gathering and can click in and out as they need.
We also celebrate that attending our services can be done from anywhere - outdoors, at home, in hospital, in the car, and even from bed.
Please come as you are, wherever you happen to be, and bring your true self along, knowing that you are loved and accepted by God and we are committed to magnifying that love and acceptance however we can as a community.
