The Gospel Halls (often referred to as 'the assemblies')
are a collection of independent evangelical churches. They are
'independent' in the sense that their beliefs and practices are
determined, not by an overarching organisation or body, but by the
believers in each locality. Yet they are a 'collection' in the sense that
they tend to hold certain distinctive beliefs in common.
...philosophy...
All believers, I take it, want to know and live out God's
will in their lives. The guiding principle behind what I will call, for
want of a better term, 'assembly-thinking' is that the easiest and most
reliable way to do this is to stick to the pattern given by the New
Testament. Hardly, one would hope, a controversial principle. However, in
practice, this is easier said than done. After all, it is not necessarily
God's will that all believers move to Eastern Europe in order to more
closely follow Paul's example, or greet each other with 'holy kisses'
(whatever such things may be), or wash each others' feet. So, we need to
apply some common sense when working out when writers intended their
instructions to be implemented only by a specific group of believers and
when they intended their instructions to become normative for all
Christians.
By and large, people who go to gospel halls tend to see
less of the Bible as 'cultural' than do other churches. This is not due
to any great desire to be different or awkward but simply because there
is good reason to think that, in many cases, when the apostles tell a
certain church to do something, they expect all the other churches to
follow suit (see, for instance, 1 Timothy 3.14-15, 6.3-4; 1 Corinthians
11.16; 14.33, 36; 16.1; 1 Thessalonians 2:14). Moreover, when the
apostles give reasons for their instructions, these reasons don't seem to
have much to do with the culture of the day (unlike, say, the instruction
not to eat food sacrificed to idols—compare 1 Cor 8 & 10 and
Acts 15).
In essence, then, Collier Row Gospel Hall is, like many
others, a free-standing indepedent evangelical church. But then you can
only explain so much on a website, so why not come and visit in
person?