‘By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.’ (John 15:8)
All Saints is trying to do the same thing as every other church: glorify God, bear fruit. And our beliefs are just basic, Reformed Christianity.
So what is distinctive about All Saints? We are committed to:
Putting Sundays at the heart
We gather together on Sundays to come before God himself: to praise him in song, bring our needs to him in prayer, listen to him from the Bible, and dine with him in the Lord’s Supper. It’s our awesome privilege and our joyful duty to have Sundays as the heart of church life. Our Sunday services are for everyone, of any age or background. If you can only come to one thing at All Saints, make it a Sunday service!
Preaching passage-by-passage
We tend to preach through a book of the Bible consecutively in our services because we want to follow God’s agenda and we love the richness of his word. Jesus taught that ‘all the Scriptures’ were about him (Luke 24:25–27), so our expectation is to hear Christ and life in him proclaimed from every portion of the Bible, not just the easy bits.
Addressing today’s issues
We want God’s ways to inform every part of our lives, so we don’t shy away from issues that face Christians seeking to live for Christ in the 'negative world' of twenty-first century Britain. Because the Bible is useful ‘for every good work’ (2 Tim 3:17), we’re expecting to find instruction and encouragement in it that applies to all of life, including gender and sexuality, marriage and singleness, spirituality, education, technology, family formation, and finance. We are committed to addressing these issues both on Sundays and on other occasions.
Being accessible to ordinary Christians
We want anybody of any age to be able to pick up our way of doing things easily. So while the structure and content of our services is in some ways quite traditional, we are committed to making things simple to understand (1 Corinthians 14:19). Children can be ordinary Christians, too! We encourage them to take part in our services alongside adults and try to be accessible to them as well.
long-term mission
Our goal is for All Saints to still be a thriving, faithful church for generations to come. So we want our church's reach in Exeter and beyond to grow little-by-little over many years. Our decisions about mission, staffing, planting and programmes are driven by this commitment.
Keeping things simple
We know people are busy with work, family, friends, projects, and much more. So we are committed to a streamlined approach to ministry, minimising weeknight meetings and heavy volunteer roles where we can, so that members of our church have space for things like hospitality, friendship, and rest.
Being led by our elders
We believe that church leadership involves a group of qualified men serving as shepherds of the local church (1 Peter 5:1–4), under wider oversight from other churches. So we are committed to raising up elders, to lead All Saints, and to respecting their authority as servants of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 13:17).