Welcome
Following the government's announcements, we have to cancel our Sunday services after 5 November. We hope to open again in December, but we will keep you informed as circumstances change.
Please feel free to contact any of us on the 'contact us' link (click here) for more information or if you have a particular need.
Have a look at the News page (click here) for updates and daily prayers, reflections and encouragement and listen into our podcasts here.
Riverside Church is a busy church with something going on every day. We meet for worship on Sundays at 10:45am in our church building on Southgate, the main shopping street of Sleaford, a market town in Lincolnshire. You are very welcome to drop in for worship, where we trust you will be made welcome.
We extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, gay, filthy rich, dirt poor, or are homeless; to those who may have come to this country recently and only speak a little English*; to those who are crying, to new-borns, to those of you who are skinny as a rake and to those who could afford to lose a few pounds.
We welcome you if you can sing like Pavarotti or who can’t carry a note in a bucket. You’re welcome here if you’re ‘just browsing’, just woken up or just got out of prison. We don’t care if you are more Christian than the Archbishop of Canterbury or haven’t been in church since little Jack’s christening.
We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet, and to teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome keep-fit mums, football dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegetarians, junk-food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. We welcome you if you’re having problems or you’re down in the dumps or if you don’t like ‘organised religion’, we’ve been there too!
If you blew all your money on the horses, you’re welcome here. We offer a welcome to those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell or come simply because grandma is in town and wanted to go to church.
We welcome those of you who are inked, pierced or both. We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down your throat as a kid or if you simply got lost in Sleaford’s one way system and wound up here by mistake. We welcome tourists, seekers and doubters, bleeding hearts and you!
(*kas tikai runā nedaudz angliski / kurie kalba tik šiek tiek anglų / którzy tylko mówią trochę po angielsku / которые говорят только немного по-английски / care vorbesc doar puțin limba engleză)
As a Christian fellowship our aim is to show God’s love in action by the activities carried out in our building, and through our interaction with our neighbours, both as a church and as individuals.
Riverside Church is committed to working with the churches in the town wherever possible. We are a part of Churches Together in Sleaford and District (CTSD). Volunteers from the other churches often join us in several of our mission projects.
We run a community cafe at the front of our building. This venture is known as 'The Source' and in addition to the cafe we have several well-equipped meeting rooms available to let (subject to our lettings policy). Further details can be found here.
Mission, vision & values
We are a broadly evangelical Christian church - which means we place the Word of God as a high authority for what we do and what we believe.
We are also a church committed to sharing the love of God in Christ Jesus to all whom we can. We do this through what we say and what we do. To put it another way, it is not enough just to tell others about Jesus - we want to show it too.
Our mission statement
The purpose of Riverside Church is to bring glory to God by proclaiming new life in Jesus Christ, being a welcoming Christian community, growing in maturity and reaching out in service to our neighbours near and far.
Youth & Children
Riverside Church, Sleaford, is a church committed to including age-appropriate activities for children and young people. More than this, we have as one of our core values something taken from the United Reformed Church's document, "Towards a charter for children in the Church." One of the points in that charter says, "We will only do things in separate age groups what we cannot in conscience do together."
This means that we expect our children to play a full part in the life of the church. They can minister powerfully to adults, just as adults can minister to them. We expect God to speak to them and God to speak to the whole church through them. We have a range of age-appropriate groups and activities to help their learning and spiritual growth, but it is our intention not to exclude children from any part of our church's life unless there are excellent and compelling reasons for so doing.
StreetSource
Are you aware of the involvement from the Church in the night time economy? Have you heard of Street Pastors and Street Source?
Since 2003 an organisation called 'Street Pastors' started to support all those who who visit our busy vibrant night time centres, whether they go out to celebrate or commiserate. They're not out there to convert people but help, love, care and listen.
Currently there are 11000+ Street Pastors working in 280+ locations across the UK. And they operate in Sleaford from Riverside Church on most Saturday evenings (10:30pm to 2am) when covid-19 restrictions and advice allow
