Becoming a Christian
Anyone Can Do It!
Being a Christian is not an exclusive club. But becoming a Christian does not necessarily mean you have to become, overnight, a Biblical scholar or a tub-thumping preacher. Neither does it mean you have to be perfect. In the first instance it means being ready to allow the possibility that you can have a personal relationship with God and that God can affect your life.
St Martin’s has a rich and varied worship and social life. Explore this, meet people in the Christian community and discover they are normal, ordinary people; there is nothing weird or strange about them.
For the Christian, however, there is an aspiration to be able to live a Christ-like life. In Baptism, sins are washed away and an individual is reborn into life with God. This is a personal commitment (or a personal commitment made on behalf of a child by Godparents and Parents) to strive to live according to God’s will.
What Worship Means
Christians meet together to worship. Jesus promises that where two or three are gathered in His name, there He will be also. The roots of the word ‘worship’ – in Anglo-Saxon – give us a literal meaning, the act of focussing on that which is of greatest worth.
For Christians this is God, one God experienced in three persons or aspects: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is the centre and foundation of all things - the concept of God as a Trinity of three persons helps us to understand the nature of God as love.
The worshipping community reflects the relationship between God and man. Through worship we come closer to God, expressing praise, prayer, repentance and love for him.
What We Do In Church
The Church building is a focus for the religious life of the Christian community.
St Martin’s Parish Church is not just an attractive historical building. It is a meeting place for worship and prayer, usually open during the day for private prayer.
The centre of the life of the worshipping community is the Eucharist (which means ‘thanksgiving’) or Holy Communion, often called the Mass. This act, which Christians are directly commanded to do by Jesus to recall and reconfirm our part in His ongoing life in the world, is celebrated daily at St Martin's and on four occasions each Sunday (including a vigil mass on Saturday evening).
Far from being inaccessible, all are welcome and are welcomed. The Mass is a joyful remembrance of what God, in the person of Jesus Christ, has done for mankind.