Arrived in church before twelve (4)
I believe the answer is:
came
'arrived' is the definition.
(come can mean to appear or arrive)
'in church before twelve' is the wordplay.
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'church' becomes 'ce' (abbreviation for Church of England).
'before twelve' becomes 'am' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'ce' placed around 'am' is 'CAME'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for came that I've seen before include "Arrived" , "Appeared" .)