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Welcome to Above Bar Church

We are so delighted that you are thinking of joining us here at Above Bar. Please join us at any of the services listed below and we will be ready to welcome you. In the life of the church, Sunday Services offer a chance for us to gather as a community and collectively outwork our calling to Love God, Follow Jesus and Share Hope. 

City

69 Above Bar Street, Southampton,
SO14 7FE

10AM - 11.15AM

6.15PM - 7.30PM

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East

Woodlands Community College, Southampton,
SO18 5FX

10.15AM

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What to expect

  • Our morning services are family orientated, starting with everyone together for a time of worship and activities suitable for all ages before separating into various groups. (Including children & youth).

  • Our services are relaxed and informal. We share the same teaching programme as our City site, but a week behind. Our congregation has a mix of ages, and all are welcome!

  • Our evening service is a contemporary service for all. We gather together for community, worship, prayer, and to engage in God's word. Going deeper together in faith, hope and love.

Children and Youth

We believe that knowing and following Jesus is the biggest adventure of all, and have age appropriate groups for bible-teaching and activities - we call these groups GSMA, which stands for Great Sunday Morning Adventure!

There is also a youth group for young people in school years 7 - 9 at City and East.

However, there is no provision during our services for young people in year 10 and above as we wish to encourage them participate within our regular services. They may find the style of our evening services more engaging.

FAQs

  • Our services are a mixture of prayer, Bible reading, teaching and worship.

    Preaching, Praise, Prayer, People

  • Typically a service is about 80 minutes in length.

  • City : We have no parking on site, but there are a limited number of nearby disabled bays on Ogle Road, plus many council-run car parks within a short walk - please check the city council website for locations and up-to-date charges.

    East: We have plenty of parking at the East site. Woodland College’s carpark is available for us to use.

  • Church is for everyone which means accessibility is really important to us! We will do our best to ensure that our services accommodate any accessibility requirements you may have. If you have any concerns ahead of your visit with us please don’t hesitate to get in contact with us.

    At the City site, large print song words are provided for those who are visually impaired and we have lifts throughout our building.

    Sound at Above Bar City Site

    Some of the things that might be helpful:

    (Looking at the stage from the tunnel)

    • Quieter areas - to the far left (behind the wooden partition) or single line of seats top balcony to right or very front row of seats by the Ogle Road door in front of top ceiling speakers. (Be aware that the front row of seats can sometimes be too quiet to clearly discern spoken words.)

    • Clearest [but loudest] sound is on the main floor in the middle, if you sit with people on either side of you their body's absorb the sound so this will also help

    • T-Loop - the loop was designed for the main auditorium floor and extends into the terraces, but is not available in the gallery or other parts of the building.

      (On older hearing aids there is a T-loop switch that needs to be switched on, however on the newer hearing aids you have to request the T-loop programme, once that is installed on your hearing aid you have to turn it on / off as required. It is no longer standardly included in new hearing aids as they are significantly better than they used to be so is often not needed.)

    Known issue areas:

    • Sound bounces off the walls - in the raised seat section directly to the left and right of the tunnel, closer to the walls is worse.

    • Loss of sound: The top balcony loses sound quality, there are also random dead spots throughout the church, where if you move one space to the left or right it improves!

    We are blessed with a beautiful building that was designed in an era of organs and congregation only singing with a reverberance that really enhances the singing congregation. Sadly these same acoustics make it problematic for handling the modern band we have on most Sundays so there are limitations. The AV and music teams continually look for opportunities to further improve what we do but we hope these suggestions may help as well.