St Anne’s-on-Sea URC is privileged to be part of the Lancashire West Missional Partnership – a grouping of 10 United Reformed Churches in the area of Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre. The URC is a family of Christians who meets in local churches across England, Scotland and Wales – part of the worldwide family of Reformed Churches, a group of more than 70 million Christians.
The URC has around 47,000 members in about 1,300 congregations with more than 600 ministers. More than 60,000 people worship in our churches each week, and many more take part in the weekday activities of the churches.
What we believe
God loves you. And as Christians, we do too.
Regardless of who you are, your background, your family, your past, your present or future, we are in this church because we believe that God is alive and listening to us through prayer, guiding and speaking to us through the Bible, forgiving us for what we have done wrong, and waiting for us in Heaven after we pass away.
We believe that each and every one of us can find contentment through loving and serving Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
A lack of hierarchy, and respect for individual principles, means that the URC is not rigid in the expression of its beliefs, and embraces a wide variety of opinions.
At the same time, in the words of the URC’s Statement of Nature, Faith and Order, together we are committed to ‘God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit – the living God, the only God, ever to be praised.’
You are welcome here
We are proud to be an intercultural Church, where people with varied ethnic and cultural roots meet, worship, discuss and learn from one another.
We were pioneers in ordaining women – the first URC female minister was ordained more than 100 years ago in 1917.
Most jobs and roles within the URC, whether voluntary or paid, are open to all.
Our roots
Being reformed sets us in a stream of tradition that goes back 500 years. In 1517 Martin Luther launched a movement of challenge in the Church that we call the Protestant Reformation.
Changes came quickly. Bibles were translated and printed in languages everybody used (not just in Latin). There was a new emphasis on the importance of the whole church and everybody in it – members and ministers together.
Being reformed is part of our DNA. It reflects our continual aim of reforming ourselves to be a Church for the present day.
Being reformed means that we delight in exploring the Bible, do not fear change, and try to run our churches in ways that take everyone’s insight and contribution seriously.