CHURCH-GOERS attending services at a football stadium will be greeted by music and refreshments, from Sunday.

In keeping with the setting, the Bethany Christian Centre's new weekly services at the Stadium of Light, in Sunderland, are intended to be less formal than the traditional church arena.

Functions rooms, including the banqueting suite, at the stadium, will be free of religious artefacts to offer a less imposing and more welcoming surroundings to people being attracted back to the Church.

It is part of the successful Bethany Church's winning combination, which now sees its weekly services at its purpose-built centre, in Houghton-le-Spring, bursting at the seams.

Setting up the new off-shoot centre at the stadium is aimed at attracting newer members to the growing Bethany congregation and relieving pressure on the existing church.

Minister David Burke said: "What better place if we're setting up in Sunderland than at the Stadium of Light.

"You don't need a steeple. Everyone knows where it is, and it's a modern comfortable facility, not some draughty old church with rows of ageing pews."

Sunday's first stadium service is in the Durham Suite, via the West Stand reception area, starting at 11am.