Northdown CFC

Up until a couple of months ago, a warehouse was for me exactly that — a warehouse. And a shop of course, but I’m referring to an actual physical warehouse. Not so any more! Referring to my ‘Made in Belfast’ review, I have since discovered a warehouse refurbished as a restaurant, and today I went to church in one of these fashionable buildings. Warehouses most certainly seem the way forward.
I am a regular church goer, but have recently had a desire to nosey around a few different ones and see how I like them. Northdown CFC happened to be today’s lucky church, and so myself and my boyfriend ventured on our 5 minute journey to Newtownards.
Having read on the website that the service started at 11am, we were both rather alarmed to realise that there were only 5 other people (and the worship band) actually in the church when we arrived at 10:55am. We later found out that a) this is a regular occurance (and to be frank, it happens in my home church pretty much all the time), and b) summer time is more laid back anyway. Just before the service started, my boyfriend and I got a poke from behind from a friendly regular saying hello, and how he hadn’t seen us before and hoped we had a good morning. Shucks.
At 11:15 (approx), the Pastor welcomed us all (all = 60 people at this stage) and informed us that we were going to sing songs, hear a lady speak and have tea and coffe. Lovely jubbly. The worship band were pretty sound, and the lady speaker did a great job on on her favourite passage from Hebrews. Tea and coffee, we learnt (from nice Mr Friendly man), were free for visitors, which my boyfriend greatly appreciated. I, being my usual awkward self, told the lady serving that I didn’t drink tea, coffee or hot water, much to her dismay. Sorry missus, that’s just the way I roll.
We got chatting to a lovely, friendly girl around our age who introduced us to the Pastor who was also lovely and friendly. I really appreciated the effort these people made to make us welcome. Coming from such a big church, you sometimes miss the small community that is so evident in other churches. But I felt right at home in Northdown.
Lovely little friendly church in a warehouse… do check it out.