Find a church near your posting
Use your location to see congregations close to your quarter or the wider garrison area.
Chaplaincy: church that comes with the job
All three services maintain professional chaplaincies. The Royal Army Chaplains' Department, the Royal Navy Chaplaincy Service and the RAF Chaplains' Branch place padres alongside serving personnel at home and on operations, and their ministry extends to spouses and children. Chaplains conduct Sunday worship in station and garrison churches, prepare families for baptisms and weddings, and are often the first call in a crisis, whatever a family's faith background.
Garrison churches, from the Royal Garrison Church in Aldershot's long tradition to chapels on stations across the country, offer worship shaped around service life. The congregation understands deployment without needing it explained, the padre knows the pressures of the patch, and the liturgy carries the weight of remembrance well. The trade-off is turnover: garrison congregations change constantly as units rotate, so deep, multi-year friendships can be harder to build there than in a settled civilian church.
Civilian churches near the bases
Towns with a large forces presence, places like Aldershot, Catterick, Colchester, Tidworth and Bulford on Salisbury Plain, Portsmouth and Plymouth for the Navy, and the RAF communities around Brize Norton and Marham, tend to have civilian churches that are quietly expert at welcoming forces families. The best of them share some habits:
- Fast integration. They get newcomers into a small group within weeks, because they know a posting may only last two years.
- Deployment support. Meals on the doorstep, help with the school run, and friends who check in on the spouse holding the fort at home.
- Children's and youth work that absorbs newcomers. Forces children change schools often; a good family-friendly church gives them one place where being new is normal.
- Grace about goodbyes. Churches used to forces families release people well, with prayer and a send-off rather than guilt.
Christian fellowship within the forces
Alongside chaplaincy and the local church, several UK organisations support Christians in uniform. The Armed Forces Christian Union (AFCU) links praying members across all three services and their families, including prayer support through deployments. SASRA, the Soldiers' and Airmen's Scripture Readers Association, places Scripture Readers on garrisons and stations for one-to-one conversations about faith. The Naval Christian Fellowship serves the fleet similarly. These networks travel with you from posting to posting, which makes them a valuable constant in a mobile life.
Making each move work
- Ask before you arrive. Your current church, padre or AFCU contacts can usually recommend a congregation near the new patch. A single trusted recommendation saves months of searching.
- Visit early and decide quickly. With a two-to-three-year posting, spending a year church-shopping wastes the assignment. Shortlist two or three, visit each once or twice, then commit.
- Say who you are. Tell the minister you are a forces family, how long you expect to stay, and that you want to get stuck in. Churches respond to honesty with practical help.
- Serve anyway. It is tempting to hold back because you are leaving eventually. Families who volunteer from the start make friends fastest and leave the richest legacy.
- Keep a thread of continuity. Membership of AFCU or a similar fellowship, and friendships maintained from previous postings, mean each new church is a fresh chapter rather than a fresh start from zero.
Frequently asked questions
Should we worship at the garrison church or a local church?
Many families do both: the station or garrison chapel connects you to service life and its rhythms, while a civilian congregation offers stability, a wider mix of ages and a community that will still be there if you settle in the area after discharge. There is no rule; choose the combination that feeds your family.
What support is there during deployment?
Tell your church before the deployment starts. Congregations near garrisons are used to organising practical help for the spouse at home, and chaplaincy and welfare services remain available throughout. The AFCU also arranges prayer support for deployed members and their families.