A vibrant and welcoming church community, growing together in faith, and inspired to love and serve our neighbourhood.
Great Western Park Church is an engaging, welcoming, family-friendly church based on Great Western Park in Didcot. We are part of the Oxford Diocese of the Church of England. Founded in 2017, we’re still quite new, and we do church a little differently. Our services are very relaxed, informal and family-friendly, and many of us meet with each other throughout the week as we go through life together.
While we are based on GWP, we are a diverse community drawn from across Didcot and the surrounding villages. We believe that God has called us together to encourage each other to grow in faith, knowledge, and service, and to play an important part in the development of our new neighbourhood. We want to share God’s love for all the people who live here.
Whether you’re new to the area or not, whether you’re a regular churchgoer or whether you’ve never set foot in church before, whatever your age, and whatever your background, we’d love to welcome you.
What we believe and what this means
We believe in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that Jesus Christ died and rose again to take away our sin, giving us new life and relationship with God. We believe that this gift from God is not only transformative – it is freely available to all who believe. We seek to help each other to grow in faith and love and share this hope with those around us.
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
1 JOHN 4:9-11
What we do
We meet weekly as a whole church for a family-friendly Sunday service in which we worship God, learn more about Him, and come together for community and fellowship – but the life of our community is so much more than Sunday services.
Many of us also meet socially for (currently virtual) quizzes, movie nights, and other socials. We are also very much looking forward to returning to the pub! We are committed to learning from the Bible, and we meet in small groups on weekday evenings to share our lives, explore our faith, and support each other. We encourage as many people as possible in our congregation to get involved in these small groups, and to engage with the pastoral support we offer.
We are active in the community and engaged in supporting our schools and local college. We work with other Didcot-based charities and groups to support the community and to make it a vibrant, safe place to live. We have a particular focus on children and young people, offering a regular ‘Blankety Church’ for young families, as well as a summer program or week of fun and affordable activities.
Our community café runs every Thursday from 10am-12noon. We usually meet at the Northern Neighborhood Community Centre, but are currently meeting on Zoom amid Covid-19 restrictions. The café is run entirely by volunteers and seeks to provide a place where the people of Great Western Park can connect. It is especially child-friendly, offering lots of things for little people to do, as well as conversation and coffee for the grown-ups.
At present, we have no church building of our own, but we have worshipped regularly at the UTC College Cafe for several years. We also stream our services online using Zoom. To find out how to join our Sunday services, please contact Mark Bodeker.
We use All Saints’ Didcot church for weddings, baptisms and funerals, so that we can support you during those important times in your life.
Get in Touch.
We’d love to hear from you. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with the contact information below, or send a message via our Facebook page.
Great Western Park Church 