IN WESTGATE
The purpose of this page is to present a picture of what facilities are used at Westgate, to assist us in our worship of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
The Christian witness here at Westgate began way back in 1826 when Christians joined together, in a timber structured building named “Bethel”, to worship God. During that time the only means of lighting would be through the use of candles. The means of communication was Loud preaching (no amplification).
In June 1867 the first services were held in this substantial stone building. It is very likely that town gas was used to provide the lighting, (the 50mm gas supply pipes are still in place in the loft).
It is not known whether or not they used a piano or small hand pumped organ to sing to or whether the congregation sang praises to God, unaccompanied.

Since the 1940’s, electric light replaced gas light and an upright piano along with the Large Pipe Organ, installed around 1940, are still in use today.

During the 1970’s, a basic loud speaker system was installed and recordings of sermons was achieved with the use of Cassette Tape recorders.

Since approximately the 2000’s, MEDIA had taken a much more central role in the day to day communication within the church,

Since the Pandemic of 2020, we introduced a range of media technologies, enabling us to provide the fellowship, and wider, with remote access to sermons and Sunday school lessons via video recordings using the internet.

We meet as Christians to worship, praise and learn of God, and enjoy fellowship together.
We sing praises to God with the accompaniment of either a Piano or a Pipe Organ. We sing either from hymn books or from projected hymns onto a large screen.
Children, in the beginning of the service, enjoy a projected story and then in Sunday School, enjoy a video before their lessons.