Welcome to St Andrew’s Chesterton! We are the Church of England church for the area of North Cambridge between the River Cam and Milton Road, from Mitcham’s Corner to Green End Road. Our beautiful medieval church building is a little over a mile from Cambridge City Centre – easily reached by cycling or walking from all directions, including over the white Equiano Bridge, or by regular bus routes on the Chesterton Road.
Thriving – we are a community full of life
At the heart of being a church community is meeting together for worship on Sundays – and sharing lives across the week.
Our Sunday worship follows a deliberately diverse pattern across each month – combining depth and tradition, beauty and creativity, feeding from Scripture and Communion.
Music is always a rich and important part of our main service at 10am – in both formal and informal ways. We aim to be a place where the Anglican choral tradition is valued alongside contemporary and contemplative styles. Earlier each Sunday, at 8am, a quiet traditional Communion follows the rhythms and depth of the Book of Common Prayer. Our evenings services at 5.30pm are currently once a month – and vary, including choral evensong and contemplative services in the Taizé tradition.
During the week, members of our church family maintain friendships and support for one another through fellowship and Bible study groups in homes, youth and children’s groups, and a range of community events hosted in the St Andrew’s Hall.
Open – our building and our community are open to all
St Andrew’s is a body of people and a treasured building and churchyard connecting us with God, one another and the Creation.
We are a community which values openness in thought and faith. Our church body includes people with diverse faith journeys representing much of the variety of belief and practice within the Church of England. We encourage gifts in leadership in women and men, and recognise no limits on the lay and ordained roles either may be called to within the Church. We affirm the dignity and value of all human beings as God made them, and so include LGBTQ+ people in our welcome. We are a church that chooses to avoid adopting labels that might communicate inclusion to some and exclusion to others.
Some would call us a ‘both-and’ kind of church – valuing both preaching and the Eucharist, both heart and head knowledge, both tradition and imagination. We are Christians drawn to a generous orthodoxy, not driven to exclusive positions. In Jesus we recognise our best example of open and generous welcome in God and the way revealed for us to receive fullness of life together.
One way we seek to be an open community is to share the beauty and stillness of our Grade 1 listed church building to visitors throughout the week. The church is open almost every day as a space for prayer and peace for all – from about 9am to dusk.
Our churchyard is also open to everyone at all times – a place we are seeking to cherish through encouraging biodiversity, and a valued green route for walkers and cyclists passing through this corner of North Cambridge.
Welcoming for all ages
At St Andrew’s, we want to value everyone of any age, background or stage of faith among us. We believe inter-generational worship is a gift to the church – so children are to be seen and heard, and grown-up teaching is not limited to just one learning style.
Every Sunday we make provision for families and young people in our main 10am service. Twice a month, and at major festivals like Christmas and Easter, this service is designed for all-age involvement. On other Sundays we either host an informal Café Church in the St Andrew’s Hall or Junior Church meets as age-appropriate groups suitable for children aged 0-18 (see the Services page for more details).
We look forward to welcoming you to St Andrew’s!
You can find our welcome leaflet here.
Philip