Morning worship is held every week at 11am until midday and we hold Holy Communion once a month.
We try to make worship applicable to all ages, using different styles and enjoying the variety this brings. Both traditional and modern hymns are used in our worship and occasionally we use Iona or Taize chants. Prayer is an important part of our worship.
Whilst retaining our own identity, we enjoy learning and working together to do God's will here in Southampton. In 2006 we became part of a larger group of churches (known as the South West Hants Group), in order to share our resources more effectively and at present this group involves ourselves and Avenue St Andrew's United Reformed Church. Our church is also a member of Churches Together in Shirley and District; an interdenominational group working to share the Good News in word and deed in the Shirley area. The Communicare project is one success story from this work.
Throughout the year we support local charities such as the Society of St James, Southampton City and Region Action to Combat Hardship (SCRATCH), and the Countess Mountbatten Hospice; on a wider scale we support and give to Christian Aid and our Commitment for Life partner.
Our Ministry
Isaac Watts is a member of the United Reformed Church and combine our commitment to the Reformed tradition with a passionate belief that all God’s people should be one. We seek to work with Christians of all traditions, and rejoice in being part of Local Ecumenical Partnerships, with the Methodist Church and others. We are also committed to theological and cultural diversity and consider ourselves a welcoming and multi-cultural church, rejoicing in the gifts of all our members.
Our present minister, the Rev Dr Sarah Hall, is the group minister in the South West Hants Group of churches that includes Avenue St Andrew's United Reformed Church and ourselves.
Sarah is also currently the Free Church Chaplain at the University of Southampton.
Our Beliefs
Called to be God’s people, transformed by the Gospel, making a difference in today’s world. This is the United Reformed Church.
Although one of the smaller mainstream denominations, the United Reformed Church plays a dynamic and challenging part in the British Christian community. It has brought together English Presbyterians, English, Welsh and Scottish Congregationalists, and members of the Churches of Christ, through unions in 1972, 1981 and 2000. Sixty-eight thousand people make up 1500 congregations, with nearly 700 ministers, paid and unpaid.
The United Reformed Church combines its commitment to the Reformed tradition with a passionate belief that all God’s people should be one. It seeks to work with Christians of all traditions, and rejoices in being part of more than 400 Local Ecumenical Partnerships, with the Methodist Church and others. It is also committed to theological and cultural diversity. It has declared itself a multi-cultural church, rejoicing in the gifts of members from across the world and seeks to hold together a wide variety of theological understandings; the valuing of different insights helps the church understand the wonder of God.
Worldwide, more than 70 million Christians are members of the Reformed family of churches. They uphold the historic Trinitarian creeds of the church universal and find the supreme authority for their lives in the Word of God in the Bible, discerned under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. They order their lives through councils of the church, where ministers and lay people together seek the mind of Christ.
Statements of Faith
The United Reformed Church at the date of formation confesses its faith in the words of this statement:-
- We believe in the one living and true God, creator, preserver and ruler of all things in heaven and earth, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Him alone we worship, and in him we put our trust.
- We believe that God, in his infinite love for men, gave his eternal Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who became man, lived on earth in perfect love and obedience, died upon the cross for our sins, rose again from the dead and lives for evermore, saviour, judge and king
- We believe that, by the Holy Spirit, this glorious Gospel is made effective so that through faith we receive the forgiveness of sins, newness of life as children of God and strength in this present world to do his will.
- We believe in the one, holy, catholic, apostolic Church, in heaven and on earth, wherein by the same Spirit, the whole company of believers is made one Body of Christ, to worship God and serve him and all men in his kingdom of righteousness and love.
- We rejoice in the gift of eternal life, and believe that, in the fullness of time, God will renew and gather in one all things in Christ, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever.
Our Mission
We are a welcoming and inclusive Church, who believe that the Bible is important for living our daily lives. We aim through words and actions to share the Love of God, the Good News of Salvation through Jesus Christ, and the transformation brought by the Holy Spirit, to our local community and beyond.
As a Christian Church we believe that mission and outreach activities lie at the heart of our faith. For many years now some of our members have been organising a social group/badminton group. We organise a monthly community lunch for senior citizens which often includes external speakers. We maintain close links with a number of local schools.