Services and Spirituality
As a Christian church, All Saints is dedicated to the worship of God whom we understand to be a Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Churches may be many things, but they are all tents in the desert of this world, houses in which we give thanks for Jesus who is Emmanuel (‘God-with-us’), and places in which worship, adoration, prayer, lament, and thanksgiving are offered with a regularity that offers a fixed point as the decades pass, history unfolds, and the world changes.
Services
Sunday
8.00am Holy Communion
A service of Holy Communion substantially following the Book of Common Prayer. There is a sermon, and no music. Held in the Lady Chapel at the front of the church on the right.
10.00am Choral Eucharist
A Sung Eucharist that is the main service of the day, with a sermon, hymns, a mass setting sung by our choir, and Holy Communion. Small Saints, our children’s group, meets on the second Sunday of each month during term-time; and on the third Sunday of each month this service takes a briefer and less formal all-age format. Held in the main body of the church. Tea, coffee and squash are served afterwards for those who wish to stay.
12 noon The Late Service
A shorter, informal service with hymns, Bible reading, sermon and prayers. Holy Communion on the last Sunday of the month. Held in the main body of the church. Tea, coffee and squash are served afterwards for those who wish to stay. N.B. The Late Service does not take place in August.
Weekdays
9.15am Morning Prayer Mon & Thu
Prayer to begin the day. A short service including psalms, Bible readings and prayers. Held in the choir stalls. N.B. Morning Prayer is not held on Bank Holidays.
10.00am Eucharist Thursday
A shorter service of Holy Communion with no music. Occasionally there is a brief sermon. Held in the choir stalls. Coffee is served afterwards for those who wish to stay.
6.00pm Evening Prayer: Tue, Wed, Thu
Prayer at the day’s close, substantially following the Book of Common Prayer. We often sing a hymn and the psalms and canticles, but there is no formal musical accompaniment. Held in the choir stalls.
Private prayer and reflection
All Saints is usually open seven days a week (usually between 09.15 and 15.00 GMT, and 09.15 and 18.00 British Summer Time) for private prayer and reflection to all those who wish to come in.
Spirituality
The spiritual life of the church
As London grew and suburban development spread from Putney towards Richmond in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this parish found that an increasingly large proportion of its population lived at some distance from the parish church, St Mary the Virgin at Mortlake. Christ Church and All Saints were built in response to this changing situation, and the worship of God began at All Saints in 1929 on All Saints’ Day, 1 November.
This social and historical context is not unconnected with Spirituality: as a Christian church and as the Christians gathered within its walls All Saints exists, of course, primarily for the worship of God; but we are here, too, to serve the community in which the church sits. The greater part of the congregation at All Saints lives within a fifteen-minute walk of the church.
As a Christian church, All Saints is dedicated to the worship of God whom we understand to be a Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Churches may be many things, but they are all tents in the desert of this world, houses in which we give thanks for Jesus who is Emmanuel (‘God-with-us’), and places in which worship, adoration, prayer, lament, and thanksgiving are offered with a regularity that offers a fixed point as the decades pass, history unfolds, and the world changes.
In common with Anglicans across the world our Christian faith is rooted in Holy Scripture, set out in the Creeds, and nourished in the Sacrament of Holy Communion (also termed the Eucharist). As disciples of Jesus, we believe that he leads us – in good times and in bad – all the days of our life, and that it is in and through him that we have a dwelling-place with God. We trust that Jesus gives the Holy Spirit to each Christian and that, as we give time to our faith and as we faithfully walk with Jesus, we grow in our awareness of his faithfulness to us and to where he is leading us. As Christians we understand Jesus to be the Light of the World, and we pray for the courage to walk in his light each day of our lives.