The Nine O'Clock Service was a youth-orientated alternative Christian worship service started in 1986 at St Thomas' Church in

Crookes Crookes is a suburb of the City of Sheffield, England, about west of the city centre. It borders Broomhill to the south, Walkley and Crookesmoor to the east and open countryside around the River Rivelin to the north. The population of the ...

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire a ...

, England, by a group of musicians and artists. The service and the group associated with it grew to national prominence, but the service was stopped in 1995 following allegations of sexual and emotional abuse.

Origins

Beginning as a simple alternative format service under the leadership of Chris Brain, the group responsible for it developed a leadership structure that was endorsed by the leadership of St Thomas' Church. The average age of the members was 24 for much of NOS's life. The membership was significantly from non-church backgrounds. Starting with about 10 people who worked on designing and creating the services, the congregation grew to almost 600 members while resident at St Thomas' Church. Main themes included care for the planet and concern about its abuse, simple lifestyle and development of relationships with non-churched people. By 1988,

David Lunn David Ramsay Lunn (17 July 1930 – 19 July 2021) was a British Anglican bishop. From 1980 to 1997, he was Bishop of Sheffield in the Church of England. Lunn was born on Tyneside and educated at the Kings School, Tynemouth, where he was head b ...

, then

Bishop of Sheffield The Bishop of Sheffield is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Sheffield in the Province of York. A similar title was first created as a suffragan see in the Diocese of York in 1901. John Quirk, the only Bishop suffragan of Sh ...

, sanctioned a move to a new site at

Ponds Forge Ponds Forge International Sports Centre is a leisure complex in Sheffield, England, that contains an Olympic-sized swimming pool with seating for 2,600 spectators, family and children's pools (50 m Competition pool and 25 m diving p ...

Rotunda in the centre of Sheffield. Around the same time, Chris Brain underwent training to be ordained as a priest in the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

. ''The Planetary Mass'' at Pond's Forge was marked by both bold liturgical experimentation and naive hopefulness. The suspended Roman Catholic priest and American Dominican theologian

Matthew Fox Matthew Chandler Fox (born July 14, 1966) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Charlie Salinger on '' Party of Five'' (1994–2000) and Jack Shephard on the drama series ''Lost'' (2004–2010), the latter of which earned h ...

was consulted.

Demise

The number of community members stopped growing and service attendance plateaued at about 300. A significant practical weakness in terms of duty of care was the lack of accountability for NOS and its absence from diocesan accountability. This was allowed because of its perceived international significance, which in the end came to nothing. Plans for communities elsewhere were in talks. In 1995, a number of complaints began to surface of the sexual abuse of women in the group by Chris Brain. After an investigation by the

Diocese of Sheffield The Diocese of Sheffield is an administrative division of the Church of England, part of the Province of York. The Diocese of Sheffield was created under George V on 23 January 1914, by the division from the Diocese of York (along with that pa ...

, the group was shut down in August 1995. The Bishop of Sheffield demanded Brain's resignation after he confessed to having sexual relationships with young women in the congregation. There were also calls from former members of the congregation that he be

defrocked Defrocking, unfrocking, degradation, or laicization of clergy is the removal of their rights to exercise the functions of the ordained ministry. It may be grounded on criminal convictions, disciplinary problems, or disagreements over doctrine or ...

. The

Archbishop of York The archbishop of York is a senior bishop in the Church of England, second only to the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and the metropolitan bishop of the province of York, which covers th ...

banned Brain from acting as an ordained priest. Initially refusing to step down, Brain eventually resigned in November 1995, the week before a documentary on the abuse scandal was aired. He then checked himself into a psychiatric hospital. The Diocese of Sheffield, through a seconded pastoral team led by Rachel Ross, the Reverend Andrew Teal and the Reverend Peter Craig-Wild, attempted to manage the pastoral care both of Brain and members of the community wounded by the scandal. A remnant of the community continued to meet, under different leadership, for some years afterwards in Sheffield.

Books

References

{{Reflist Christianity in Sheffield 1986 establishments in England 1995 disestablishments in England