Parish Profile
This parish profile has been prepared by the Parish’s members of the Nomination committee, in March 2024, in consultation with the Parish and the Diocese. We have endeavoured to tell the truth and to give credit to the words and photographs of others where appropriate.
Characteristics of Holy Innocents Anglican Parish
Our weekly pew sheet has a welcome note for our guests:
A warm welcome to all our regular worshippers and to everyone who is visiting us today. Holy Innocents is an Anglican Parish seeking to follow Jesus and honour and worship God while creating a safe and nurturing environment in which we can explore faith and build community. You are welcome here ‘as you are’, embraced within God’s boundless love.
Not everyone here believes exactly the same thing and we don’t expect that you will agree with everything we do and say. A church community is always made up of people with differing views and beliefs about certain things – but should also be a place where we can respectfully and enthusiastically seek truth together. It is good to have you here today and we hope that you will feel at home.
These words are an introduction to who we are. We seek Jesus together, we celebrate differences, we care for community and we welcome others.
We seek Jesus together
The members of our church come from different backgrounds, with different experiences, and are at different stages of faith. Yet we are all in some way captivated by Jesus - and the way that he reconciles, restores and transforms our lives and asks us to do likewise in the world. The ways that we seek Jesus may look different (see Structures of Worship [next section. Could be linked here]) but we are united in our care and commitment to God and to each other. We recognise that God is at work in all of us.
The parish is used to preaching styles that take Scripture and relate it to our daily lives in challenging ways. We enjoy learning about God and Jesus by exploring the historical, cultural, religious and Anglican contexts of the lectionary readings.
We aim to encourage people to actively notice God’s presence and seek it out, regardless of where they are in their spiritual journey. For this reason, our church has a tradition of offering an open Eucharist table which allows people from other denominations and backgrounds to feel comfortable taking part in our spiritual practices.