What does family mean?
In our ‘household’ are people of all ages and walks of life, many different personalities and temperaments, and a number of different countries. For all our different profiles, we love spending time with each other and welcoming others into the family.
The church community includes everyone from babies to grandparents, with large groupings of students, people in their twenties and young families. We enjoy a vibrant community life. Outside our regular group meetings, there are always people meeting up for meals, movies or games nights, going for walks or coffee outings, kicking a football around or throwing a frisbee.
Values
Our hearts are committed.
We have a lot of fun, and we’re all very different in terms of personality and temperament, but there are certain commitments we all share.
Committed to Jesus
Jesus is the centre of our lives as individuals. And he’s the centre of our corporate life as a church.
Committed to the Bible
We treasure the gift of the Bible: we teach it and study it in order to know God better, and to live accordingly.
Committed to prayer
Prayer isn’t optional. In fact it’s the delight of every believer and undergirds all we do as a church: we depend on God to do his work.
Committed to community
We’re constantly looking for ways to love, support and care for each other. We want everyone to feel part of the family.
Committed to the Gospel
We may have a family feel, but we’re not just a club for people to make friends and grow old together. We’re more an army on a mission: ‘contending as one for the faith of the gospel’.
Committed to training
We work hard to ‘prepare God’s people for works of service’. That means not just doing ministry, but teaching it.
Committed to Godliness
As we study the Bible together, we’re aiming not simply to inform minds, but to transform lives. We long for the work of the Spirit to be evident in all our lives.
Committed to our beliefs
For information about what we believe, our statement of faith contains a summary of the Bible’s teachings as we understand them.
It’s all about Jesus
If you’re wondering what we’re about at Christ Church or what the message of the Christian faith is, we’re all out to celebrate the remarkable news of what Jesus has done for us and how we respond to that.
Our Team
Timeline
The Christ Church Story
Beginnings
In the autumn of 2006, a small group of Christians from around Southampton started to meet up each Sunday evening to study the Bible in the Elizabeth House Hotel.
A few months later, that small group began meeting on a Sunday morning under the name ‘Sunday@Swaythling’ as a witness for Christ at Swaythling Primary School.
A number of individuals soon began to come to faith and grow in their knowledge of God.
Growing
Much changed in 2010-11. The church became known as ‘Christ Church Southampton’, moved to larger accommodation at Cantell School and called a full-time pastor.
Under God, as we’ve prayed, preached and planned, it has pleased him to give rapid growth in numbers.
What was a small group of a couple of dozen people is now a bustling community of hundreds of people, meeting in three congregations.
Linking up
As time has gone on, we’ve begun to team up with other churches in different ways.
Our affiliations and informal connections now include the FIEC, UCCF and the Pillar Network.
We are also a founding church member of ‘Reach South’, along with Cornerstone Church Portsmouth and Redeemer Winchester. We partner with gospel workers operating in different parts of the UK and in Eastern Europe.
Planting Seeds
As we look to the future, we’re excited about the prospect of planting new churches.
We’ve sent off teams to establish Cornerstone Church Portsmouth (2016), Redeemer Winchester (2019), Trinity Church Salisbury (2022) and Hope Church Chichester (2025).
In 2019, we established Reach South, a church network working to train, resource and plant more churches around our region.
We'd love to welcome you!
Ready to come along, or simply got questions? Find out more about our Sunday gatherings or get in touch with the Church team today.
