‪Ebenezer Reformed Baptist Church‬‎ in Brighton

It’s Sunday, Sep 4 – Day 27 in Europe. Journeys Hostel provides breakfast from 8-10am, but it’s just bread, jam, butter, cereal, and milk. Due to likely lactose intolerance, I’m avoiding milk; so I just had some wheat bread toast with marmalade and butter. While eating, I talked with a guy who’s visiting Brighton for the day. He lives and works in London, where he’s a plumber for the Royal Parks, including Hyde Park.

I looked up nearby churches on Google Maps, and there are quite a few of them. One started at 10am, and it was already about 10:30 at the time I started searching, so I had already missed that one. I found one that has 11am morning service on Sundays:

‪Ebenezer Reformed Baptist Church‬‎
‪12 Richmond Parade‬
‪Brighton, East Sussex BN2 9QD, United Kingdom‬

When I arrived at the door, I was greeted by a friendly young man named John. He lives in Brighton, as does his family, in a flat right above the church. I also met Lydia, a Japanese British lady who plays piano and will soon be studying a Master’s in music. We talked for a bit, as I was early — and good thing I was. I really enjoyed meeting John and Lydia. Also, I hope this is the beginning of a trend: being early instead of late.

Typically, I’m late to everything. I didn’t write about this (yet?), but I missed my original train coming from London to Brighton, despite telling myself I’d try to arrive at the train station a ridiculous 2-hours early. Of course, as the time drew near, I kept telling myself I actually had tons of time, since I was planning 2 hours ahead. By the time I arrived at the platform, my train had left some 10 minutes before. Fortunately, the person at the gate didn’t check tickets very closely, and there was no ticket inspector onboard. I had my ticket, of course; it was just for a slightly earlier train. A little dodgy, perhaps, but not unethical, in my opinion. The train itself had loads of empty seats. If it were full, I surely wouldn’t have snuck on.

Anyway, the church service was nice, if a little tiring. I feel that going to church is an exercise in honing my focus and stretching my attention span. It’s frequently a major challenge to keep from dozing off, and I think Lydia — who I sat next to — felt the same way, judging from a yawn and comment of tiredness at the end.

I’m terrible at estimating this type of thing, but I’d say it was a very small congregation, and there were perhaps 20 people in attendance. They do have an evening service as well, at 6:30pm I believe.

The church was quite nice, and with John there, I highly recommend it — as long as you’re ok with very small churches. Lydia, like me, was a visitor; so she won’t be there normally. She attends an evangelical church in London.