{"id":901,"date":"2019-07-01T17:19:44","date_gmt":"2019-07-01T17:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/access.westnetsolutions.co.uk\/~bristolr\/wp\/?page_id=901"},"modified":"2019-09-07T20:25:18","modified_gmt":"2019-09-07T20:25:18","slug":"your-first-visit","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bristolroadbaptist.org\/wp\/?page_id=901","title":{"rendered":"Your First Visit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Normal-P0\" style=\"color: #000000;\"><span class=\"Strong-C\">If you are not a regular churchgoer, you may feel a bit daunted about stepping into church. Don&#8217;t be!\u00a0 We very much want to be a church for today&#8217;s people. So here&#8217;s a few comments to help you feel welcome and comfortable when you attend a Sunday service&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"Normal-P0\" style=\"color: #000000;\"><span class=\"Strong-C0\">You can expect&#8230;<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul class=\"Normal-P1\" style=\"color: #0000ff;\">\n<li class=\"Normal-P2\"><span class=\"Strong-C\" style=\"color: #000000;\">A warm and friendly welcome at the door. People will greet you and introduce themselves in the foyer area.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"Normal-P2\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span class=\"Strong-C\">A service for people of all ages.\u00a0<\/span><br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"Normal-P2\"><span class=\"Strong-C\" style=\"color: #000000;\">Older hymns and newer songs.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"Normal-P2\"><span class=\"Strong-C\" style=\"color: #000000;\">A modern presentation of the Bible message, using PowerPoint where possible to help you.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"Normal-P2\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span class=\"Strong-C\">A message that helps us all in our daily lives &#8211;<wbr \/>\u00a0not just preaching\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"Emphasis-C\" style=\"font-style: italic;\">about<\/span><span class=\"Strong-C\">\u00a0the Bible.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"Normal-P2\"><span class=\"Strong-C\" style=\"color: #000000;\">Help whether you are a committed Christian, or just finding out about Christianity.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"Normal-P2\"><span class=\"Strong-C\" style=\"color: #000000;\">Tea and coffee after the services, to chat and get to know each other better.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 class=\"Normal-P0\" style=\"color: #000000;\"><span class=\"Strong-C0\">Don&#8217;t expect&#8230;<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul class=\"Normal-P1\" style=\"color: #0000ff;\">\n<li class=\"Normal-P2\"><span class=\"Strong-C\" style=\"color: #000000;\">To be given a hymn book as you come in &#8211;<wbr \/>\u00a0all the words come up on the screens at the front.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"Normal-P2\"><span class=\"Strong-C\" style=\"color: #000000;\">To be forced to make any financial gift (sometimes known as &#8220;the offering&#8221;). We don&#8217;t want to give the false impression that we only want you for your money! <\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"Normal-P2\"><span class=\"Strong-C\" style=\"color: #000000;\">People are welcome to give gifts if they want to, but we won&#8217;t put a collection bag in front of you during the service!<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"Normal-P2\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">To have to stay for tea or coffee afterwards if you don&#8217;t want to!<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"Normal-P2\"><span class=\"Strong-C\" style=\"color: #000000;\">To do anything you are uncomfortable with. You won&#8217;t be highlighted, asked to &#8220;say hello to the person next to you&#8221;, or even join in hymns and songs if you don&#8217;t know them. Feel free to just observe and listen if that is what you want to do. Particularly during communion (when we remember the death and resurrection of Jesus &#8211;<wbr \/>\u00a0bread and communion cups are passed around), we always give people the freedom just to let it pass by without any embarrassment if they want to)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"Normal-P0\" style=\"color: #000000;\"><span class=\"Strong-C\">Finally, if you would like to give us any feedback about your &#8220;first visit&#8221; (or any for that matter!) please do so by clicking the feedback button. May we say Thank you in anticipation, and we look forward to seeing you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal-P0\" style=\"color: #000000;\">Malcolm Pitt (Elder)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you are not a regular churchgoer, you may feel a bit daunted about stepping into church. Don&#8217;t be!\u00a0 We very much want to be a church for today&#8217;s people. So here&#8217;s a few comments to help you feel welcome and comfortable when you attend a Sunday service&#8230; You can expect&#8230; A warm and friendly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bristolroadbaptist.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/901"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bristolroadbaptist.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bristolroadbaptist.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bristolroadbaptist.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bristolroadbaptist.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=901"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.bristolroadbaptist.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2404,"href":"https:\/\/www.bristolroadbaptist.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/901\/revisions\/2404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bristolroadbaptist.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}