About our Worship

Our services at Monks Risborough are built on ancient foundations, which continue to resonate with us. You will find a blend of the structure of liturgy with a warmth and vibrancy of welcome. Our preaching connects the testimony found in the Bible with the events in our newspapers in our lives. Whatever service you come to, we hope that you will experience something of God’s love for you and all creation.

Below you will find a little explanation of what happen in our services, and then our pattern of worship towards the bottom of the page.

The Eucharist (also called Holy Communion) 

Many of our services centre around the sacrament of Holy Communion, also called the Eucharist, continuing a form of worship that Christians have offered since the time of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.

In a Eucharist we praise God, often with music; we ask for forgiveness before we gather around His table; we listen to the holy scriptures and learn about them.  We declare our faith in God; we pray for each other and the world; those of us who to can receive the gift of Jesus Christ in the form of bread and wine, which become for us His body and His blood (or, alternatively, you might like to receive a blessing).  Finally, we are sent back out into our community to reflect God’s love to the world.

Our 10.00 am service on Sunday and 9.30 am service on Thursday use contemporary language; our Sunday 8.00 am at St Dunstan’s and the Sunday 9.00 am at Owlswick use the more traditional language of the Book of Common Prayer.

You can participate as much or as little as you feel comfortable with during our services.

Evensong 

Services of Evensong are reflective and beautiful, focussed on music, hearing scripture, and praying for the world. They follow the Book of Common Prayer.

Don’t worry if some of what we do in this service doesn’t at first seem clear.  Everything is done to help us better glimpse the glory of God and experience His love, but getting to grips with some aspects of it may take time.  But know that you are taking part in something that has been happening for two thousand years, and which connects us with the worship of the heavenly banquet in eternity.