Every Sunday at 11 am we have a Family Church Service.

We are continuing with a hybrid Church/Zoom Service, with worship led from the church.

Hymns are played and sung in church and those participating at home via Zoom can sing along.

We distribute an Order of Service via e-mail and include the Zoom log-in details which change for each service. If you would like to receive the weekly invitation e-mail, please let us know with an e-mail to pottersbarurc@googlemail.com

On the first & third Sunday of the month Holy Communion is celebrated at this service.

An edited video of our weekly Service can be viewed on our Services Page.

September 2026 – On behalf of the Elders

Dear friends

People make churches

The Gospel of Matthew includes a verse when Jesus asks Peter “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replies “….and I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.” What Jesus did not say is “I will build many churches.” Of course he didn’t because the church built upon Peter was a growing band of people.  This spread around the world in spite of travel and communications being primitive. Today there are 2.5 billion Christians in the world, and the number is still growing.

This is not the start of a sermon. My somewhat unusual ministry takes me regularly to 5 churches and I have been a minister for 36 years and an elder/Junior Church leader/treasurer before that. I have seen many things and can compare different styles of churchmanship and varying degrees of success and regrettably, some failures,

Why do churches fail? People, people, people! Or more precisely people to provide leadership. Bushey URC had sold part of its land and had well over £100,000 on deposit when it closed because of lack of leadership. Woodcock Hill URC, which was our family church from 1972 until I was ordained a minister in 1990, closed with over £100,000 cash but lacked leaders. My church of 28 years, St Andrew’s Borehamwood had a rock-solid eldership for all that time but when two elders moved to Essex we couldn’t go on. We didn’t have the odd £100,000 knocking about but we kept rolling along keeping our heads above water financially.

Why do churches survive? By using their people and resources appropriately for their situation and their community. Good business practice is to measure what is available and not bite off more than you can chew. But we are not a business, we are a church. We are called by God to bring salvation to those in need. What, how? Let’s get real. We all want to save Potters Bar URC for the next generation. Not the building but our Christian fellowship.

How do other churches do it. Adeyfield and St George’s are in younger communities in Hemel Hempstead. There are families and middle-aged local to them. They are active in the community and have various church groups. They were able to attract a shared stipendiary minister because of what they were already achieving. Nearer home is Brookmans Park. They are active in the community on a weekly basis and pay for assistance. Christ Church Hatfield maintains a weekly prayer meeting and other activities, and their Sunday services attract other people even to the extent that I am considering a spot for children.

I am told that it is different for us because we exist within an older community (odd that the nursery is so successful). But we could fashion our church outreach around the older community. True we may need to bite the bullet and change our service time so there can be fellowship and back in time for lunch. We may need to have a minibus. There are things we can consider to make our church more welcoming and accessible. But this needs consideration by a team, The Outreach Team. Are there any volunteers please?

God bless you

                                                                                                                                                               David Aplin

                                                                                                                                                     On behalf of the Elders