Holy Trinity churches

[Roberts551]

I’m wondering if anyone has any experience of Holy Trinity churches.

I have moved to a new city where there is a Holy Trinity church, I’ve never attended HT Brompton but this one seems very similar although it’s not directly related it is extremely similar.

The church is a normal looking church but v modern in the services with lots of screens up and very happy people it has to be said. I am not very experienced when it comes to religion and I’m wondering if it’s as nice as it seems or if it’s to be avoided. I’ve only attended normal parish type churches before as a child and anything fundamentalist worries me.

I'm a bit confused.
Holy Trinity is a really common name for Churches.
Like St Mary's or St Stephen's or Church of the Holy Cross or Christ Church.

I'm not aware of a particular group of Churches or a new denomination.

All Churches vary. Even within the Anglican Church there is a huge range of how 'High' a Church or 'Low' a Church it might be (with everything in between) and how modern (or ancient) an inside might be varies a lot as well - not necessarily any correlation with how traditional or how modern the service is likely to be.

Thanks for replying. It is a common name but the Holy Trinity Brompton has a series of church plants, the one I’m referring to isn’t an official linked church but it is identical- same branding and names for events etc. I guess you would call it charismatic or evangelical. I was using that as an example as Brompton is so huge I thought more people would have experience of it. They are very modern churches, with seemingly modern outlooks. The vicar doesn’t wear the I outfit there are no pews and it’s all seemingly modern. But I’ve read some things about mistreatment of LgTb people and I’m wondering what they are like once you move beyond what they say up front.

Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) is a style of church that is charismatic evangelical so the church you went to is likely to be similar. Some of the leaders might be from HTB or its plants originally so again there could be similarities in style and culture. You would expect lots of praise band style worship, a substantial sermon, maybe a call for prayer ministry and the Eucharist monthly or at an early service.

Most of the charismatic evangelical church leaders I know would say that homosexuality is a sin. This is the mainstream evangelical position although they would say that they love the sinner and not the sin. You might find LGBT Christians in the pew but it would be very rare that they are in leadership positions and impossible if they were civilly partnered.

It is really hard to find out if charismatic evangelical churches are pro women in leadership. The ones that aren't are usually part of the REFORM network and last time I looked none of them stated this on their websites. If they say they are under the oversight of the Bishop of Maidstone then that means definitely no women in leadership.
If they are part of the diocese network you may still find some quite conservative attitudes to women. Many of the big charismatic evangelical churches are led by ordained men with their wives. Historically the wives are untrained and unlicensed but listed as church leaders. Look at their 'who we are' section of the website for their actual position on women in leadership. You usually find a male ordained leader and his wife, a female children's worker a male youth worker and usually a male worship leader.

All this applies to the larger churches which are usually gathered, with young and wealthy or student congregations. They are network churches and don't operate as ordinary parish churches. The music will be fabulous. It will be well resourced and they are good at the basics of Christian faith. It is easy to get lost in the crowd and you are dependent on the small group leaders for pastoral support.

There are plenty of smaller charismatic evangelical congregations that function as parish churches, They may well be led by women. They may be doing a mix of traditional and praise band. There will be older people in the congregation and it will reflect the local community. There is a subset of evangelical that is 'open evangelical.' Some of these are LGBT friendly. The whole network is learning how to lament post COVID but the being happy all the time seems to be a hangover from the Protestant reformation and culturally is hard to shift.

Sorry that turned into a bit of an essay. The short version is that it is hard to tell where a church stands on LGBT unless it says they are members of the inclusive church network.

www.inclusive-church.org/

We have a couple of HTB plants here where I live and they're called 'street name' church, not Holy Trinity anything. The 'Holy Trinity' name is pretty common, and not always a giveaway of an HTB church.

Have a decent look around the website of the church you're curious about and find out some of the church history, if you can. Or look at HTB's own website and see if they list their church plants, and if that's one of them.

Other than that, ways of telling if a church is likely to be on the more evangelical end of the spectrum can be:
Mens and women's groups
Run an alpha course (which started at HTB)
Have a statement in their 'vision and values' or 'what we believe' section along the lines of believing that the Bible is the final authority on how to live / inerrant / infalliable word of God
Members of the Evanglical Alliance or New Wine Movement

Unless a church is a member of Inclusive Church (and shows that on their website), you'll not know for sure how they are regarding LGBTQ people, but there are clues on most church websites, if you know what you're looking for!!

Just go for a visit and make your own mind up.