{"id":71,"date":"2026-01-20T19:30:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T19:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ilkestonurc.org.uk\/?page_id=71"},"modified":"2026-01-20T19:30:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T19:30:06","slug":"about-ilkeston-urc","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ilkestonurc.org.uk\/?page_id=71","title":{"rendered":"About Ilkeston URC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; theme_builder_area=&#8221;post_content&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.27.0&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221;][et_pb_row _builder_version=&#8221;4.27.0&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; theme_builder_area=&#8221;post_content&#8221;][et_pb_column _builder_version=&#8221;4.27.0&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; type=&#8221;4_4&#8243; theme_builder_area=&#8221;post_content&#8221;][et_pb_heading title=&#8221;What we believe&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.27.0&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; theme_builder_area=&#8221;post_content&#8221; hover_enabled=&#8221;0&#8243; sticky_enabled=&#8221;0&#8243;][\/et_pb_heading][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.27.0&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; theme_builder_area=&#8221;post_content&#8221; hover_enabled=&#8221;0&#8243; sticky_enabled=&#8221;0&#8243;]<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Normal-C0\">We believe there is only one God, our creator.<\/span><br \/><span class=\"Normal-C0\"><\/span><br \/><span class=\"Normal-C0\">We describe God as a \u2018Trinity\u2019 of Father, Son and Holy Spirit because that\u2019s as close a description as we can get with our human understanding.<\/span><br \/><span class=\"Normal-C0\"><\/span><br \/><span class=\"Normal-C0\">We believe that, as Christians, we are called to be a community where everyone is valued and everyone has a part to play.: that we are here to help one another as we seek to follow the example that God gave us in the life of His Son, Jesus.<\/span><br \/><span class=\"Normal-C0\"><\/span><br \/><span class=\"Normal-C0\">Jesus\u2019 example also shows us that we are here to help you, whether you are a Christian or not, but our hope is that you will come to know Him and to love Him yourself.<\/span><br \/><span class=\"Normal-C0\"><\/span><br \/><span class=\"Normal-C0\">We believe that the Bible is a book that carries God\u2019s authority. We acknowledge that parts of it are difficult to understand and that we can only hope to understand it fully with the help of God\u2019s Spirit<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_heading title=&#8221;How the church is run&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.27.0&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; theme_builder_area=&#8221;post_content&#8221; hover_enabled=&#8221;0&#8243; sticky_enabled=&#8221;0&#8243;][\/et_pb_heading][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.27.0&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; theme_builder_area=&#8221;post_content&#8221; hover_enabled=&#8221;0&#8243; sticky_enabled=&#8221;0&#8243;]<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Normal-C0\">The United Reformed Church (URC) was set up with the specific objective of working towards the visible unity of the whole Christian church. It was a voluntary union between the majority of churches of the Congregational Church of England and Wales, the Presbyterian Church of England, and, more recently, Churches of Christ and the Congregational Union of Scotland .<\/span><br \/><span class=\"Normal-C0\"><\/span><br \/><span class=\"Normal-C0\">We are a conciliar church! That means that the ultimate decision-<wbr \/>making body in the local church is the \u2018Church Meeting\u2019 &#8211;<wbr \/><span>\u00a0<\/span>a gathering of all church members.<\/span><br \/><span class=\"Normal-C0\"><\/span><br \/><span class=\"Normal-C0\">We are not a democracy. \u00a0Whilst we make decisions by taking votes, we do our best to come to a decision which everyone feels is right and we trust that in our unanimity we have discerned what God would wish us to do.<\/span><br \/><span class=\"Normal-C0\"><\/span><br \/><span class=\"Normal-C0\">Practically this means that decision making can take a long time but it does mean that once a decision has been made, we work together because we have all agreed the way forward.<\/span><br \/><span class=\"Normal-C0\"><\/span><br \/><span class=\"Normal-C0\">We also have a council of Elders, members of the church who are elected and ordained to provide leadership and care in partnership with the Minister.<\/span><br \/><span class=\"Normal-C0\"><\/span><br \/><span class=\"Normal-C0\">We keep in touch with other United Reformed Churches in the East Midlands through Synod meetings, roughly every 6 months. Locally, we welcome opportunities to work together with other denominations to the glory of God<span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><span class=\"Normal-C1\">i<\/span><span class=\"Normal-C0\">n Ilkeston.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We believe there is only one God, our creator.We describe God as a \u2018Trinity\u2019 of Father, Son and Holy Spirit because that\u2019s as close a description as we can get with our human understanding.We believe that, as Christians, we are called to be a community where everyone is valued and everyone has a part to play.: that we are here to help one another as we seek to follow the example that God gave us in the life of His Son, Jesus.Jesus\u2019 example also shows us that we are here to help you, whether you are a Christian or not, but our hope is that you will come to know Him and to love Him yourself.We believe that the Bible is a book that carries God\u2019s authority. We acknowledge that parts of it are difficult to understand and that we can only hope to understand it fully with the help of God\u2019s SpiritThe United Reformed Church (URC) was set up with the specific objective of working towards the visible unity of the whole Christian church. It was a voluntary union between the majority of churches of the Congregational Church of England and Wales, the Presbyterian Church of England, and, more [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":68,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-71","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>About Ilkeston URC - Ilkeston URC<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ilkestonurc.org.uk\/?page_id=71\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"About Ilkeston URC - Ilkeston URC\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We believe there is only one God, our creator.We describe God as a \u2018Trinity\u2019 of Father, Son and Holy Spirit because that\u2019s as close a description as we can get with our human understanding.We believe that, as Christians, we are called to be a community where everyone is valued and everyone has a part to play.: that we are here to help one another as we seek to follow the example that God gave us in the life of His Son, Jesus.Jesus\u2019 example also shows us that we are here to help you, whether you are a Christian or not, but our hope is that you will come to know Him and to love Him yourself.We believe that the Bible is a book that carries God\u2019s authority. 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