I’m New

 

If you’re new,
Welcome to The Grove!

We’re a small, friendly and diverse community of Christians meeting in Westbourne Grove. The best way to describe us is as a family. We love celebrating - particularly God! We care deeply for our community and value each person. We believe in sharing God’s love which we demonstrate practically by caring for those in need around us.

 

Community

People in our community often say it’s like they’ve found a home - we hope you do too!

What we do flows out of who we are, so our activities below reflect the passions and interests of people in our church community.

There are lots of different ways to get involved at the Grove throughout the week. There’s plenty to choose from: whether you love studying the Bible, are a film aficionado, enjoy art exhibitions, want to help out with an Alpha course, serve our local homeless friends or worship with us on Sundays.

Find out more about what’s on and how you can get involved.

Sundays

Sundays are a community day where we can join together to worship God and strengthen our faith. It’s a time to learn together and share our reflections. And we love to eat lunch together afterwards.

Find out more about our Sunday services (and get the Zoom link!)

Alpha

If you’d like to find out more about the Christian faith, we run the Alpha Course which will give you the chance to think through and discuss questions about life and faith in a safe and relaxed setting. Whether you have big questions or you simply want to take a first look, the course is easy to engage with.

What is Good News?

If you’re curious about what it means to follow Jesus, but aren’t ready to explore more, find out about the Christian faith in this short video. Chris, from our team, explains what it means to follow Jesus in a few short minutes. Click on the button below to watch the video via YouTube.

Team

We do team differently.

At The Grove, it’s not all about leaders! We see everyone as unique and important in serving and encouraging one another. Together we come up with fresh ideas for showing God’s love to the community.

At The Grove we are all the team.

Frequently asked questions

 

  • Good question - there’s not just one type of church, so it can be very confusing! We’re what’s known as a Baptist church, but even Baptists vary a lot from place to place! To help you discover what we are like as a church, we’ve put together some things on this. The Grove is not like churches you may have seen on TV or experienced before! Find out more about us here.

  • It would be great to have you along - we meet at our main location, which is:

    Westbourne Grove Church
    Westbourne Grove
    London, W11 2RW

    If you’d like to get in touch, you can get hold of us via phone or e-mail:

    020 7034 050

    reception@westbournegrovechurch.org

    For more information about how to find us, local transport and parking see here

  • We meet from 10:45am. But we often come a bit earlier so that we can grab a coffee and have a chat before we get started with the meeting.

    We generally finish at about 12:15pm, but you are welcome to stay and chat afterwards.

    Once the meeting is over, we have lunch together - you are invited! Joining us for a meal is a great way to get to know others in our community.

  • There are generally plenty of parking spaces available in the streets around the church. Plus the parking is free on Sundays!

    For more information on parking and local public transport links, please see here

  • If you’re feeling nervous, don’t be! You’ll get a warm welcome from someone in our community who’ll show you where to go and what the setup is. You’ll be able to get a cup of tea or coffee and we’ll introduce you to a few people, so you can get settled in quickly and enjoy the meeting.

  • Every week we start the meeting with our ‘Glimpses of God’. Anyone can share how they’ve seen God at work  - an experience, something from TV or a poster, something in nature, a story, a song, a scripture, something funny or sad.

    We spend time worshipping God together and pray for one another. We go on to share communion, and then spend some time with bible teaching and a chance to discuss what we are learning together. Our services have a very friendly and informal feel, so whether you go to church regularly, or have never been before, we hope you will quickly feel welcome and at home.

    We’re a church where you can be honest about your dark times, struggles, and failures, where you’ll be accepted, forgiven, supported, challenged, and encouraged.

    We like to learn from different expressions of Christianity from throughout history, across denominations, and across cultures and nations - we all have things we can contribute.

    Our style is very participative, so you are absolutely welcome to contribute during the meeting.

    You’re very welcome to sit wherever you want or feel most comfortable.

  • We share Communion together (also known as Eucharist or breaking bread) every Sunday. Someone different from our community leads it each week. Our style is to gather together at a table as a group. You are welcome to join us, but there’s no pressure if you’d prefer not to. Children are very welcome to be involved in Communion too.

    For Communion, we serve bread (let us know if you have any allergies or dietary requirements) and non-alcoholic fruit juice.

  • Someone different from our community leads us in worshipping God each week. Sometimes this involves singing (we use a range of old and new songs); at other times worship may involve shorter sections that might be inspired by music, Scripture, nature, poetry, or communal responses (also known as liturgy). We all have the opportunity to participate, so there’s generally space to respond, such as reading the Bible or praying. As a Charismatic church, we love to follow the direction of the Holy Spirit so there may be times when things are quite spontaneous. If you don’t know what this means, feel free to ask us!

  • Teaching at The Grove is about looking at what the Bible says and working out how we can apply that to our lives. One of our church leaders will lead the teaching, or someone invited. There’ll often be time to think together about the teaching, respond and share from our knowledge of Scripture or life experiences. This approach is quite different to other churches, but we feel we all benefit from the rich mix of church backgrounds that people have by learning together.

  • Please feel free to stay and chat together with others in our community once the meeting is over.

    There’s a family meal every Sunday after the service, so you are welcome to stay on with us and eat together. It’s a great way to get to know people if you’re new!