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About us

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Welcome! Thanks for taking a moment to find out about us.

Here’s what we know. The God who created the cosmos loves us and wants us to know it. Being born into our world, God became one with us in Jesus of Nazareth. Why? To show us what living a life as God’s friends can be, to die for our forgiveness, to rise to show us even death cannot end God’s love. And now? Jesus gives his friends the gifts of the Holy Spirit to encourage and inspire us every step of our lives. But being God’s friends is much more than just our personal, private, story. God wants us to join God’s conspiracy of goodness; working to change the world for the better, especially for those most in need.

So, if that’s what we know, here's what we hope to be at Trinity-Henleaze United Reformed Church:

  • A truly welcoming community, open to everyone of every generation, culture, background, sexuality, identity and lifestyle
  • A joyfully worshipping community, blending styles and ways of worship because we know we all find different ways to pray and praise
  • A growing community, gathering around the Bible, delighting in God’s word as it inspires our living, responds to our questioning and challenges all assumptions
  • A serving community, dedicated to caring for creation in this urgent time of climate emergency and making kindness real in the world close by and far away
  • A sharing community, using our gifts and resources, including our building, to encourage local organisations and groups as they help our neighbourhood flourish

We would love to welcome you to join us in the adventure.

Picture of a boy at a table with craft activities.

Making the world better

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Members of our church are involved in all sorts of projects, groups and organisations as part of their commitment to following Jesus and changing the world. Many happen way beyond the church. But here are a few of the things we do as a church together:

  • Working in partnership with other local churches, especially our friends nearby at St. Peter’s Anglican Church, to serve our community
  • Sharing in Together4Bristol which gathers many of the city’s congregations to plan, pray and participate in all sorts of vital work across many of our local communities
  • We helped create the Bristol Child Contact Centre which runs in our building, enabling separated parents to safely meet their children
  • With Bristol charity DigiLocal we collect unwanted laptops for refurbishment and distribution to local families without computers
  • We are a registered Eco Church, currently with a Bronze award, working for Silver as we strive to live even more gently with God’s creation
  • We’re a FairTrade church, using items that guarantee a fair wage to those who produce them
  • We give money to help Christian Aid’s global relief work and continuously support local foodbanks and fundraise for many other causes
Picture of the art fayre with members of the congregation.

What’s the United Reformed Church (URC)?

We belong to one of Britain’s main Christian churches. We are “United” because, in 1972, we were formed as many Congregational and Presbyterian churches joined together in England and Wales. Further unions with the Churches of Christ and Congregational churches in Scotland added to our family. We represent some of this story in our own life here in Bristol. Trinity was a Presbyterian church whilst Henleaze was Congregational. The two united, and the Trinity building was converted into flats. We are “Reformed” because our bit of the worldwide Church goes back to ways of organising churches and thinking about the Bible and Christianity that gradually emerged during the Reformation in Continental Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The URC has around 1,300 churches across Britain with around 48,000 people worshipping Sunday by Sunday. The URC is organised through 13 Synods sharing together to support congregations. We’re in South Western Synod, which runs from Land’s End in Cornwall to Swindon in Wiltshire. The URC is passionate about working with other Christians because Jesus prays for our unity. And we always want to build bridges across divisions in society and the world, fighting injustice and shaping a world where all may have life in its fulness as God intends.