History

Stratford upon Avon has a population of 33,000 over 80% being British white and the other segments of the population of various ethnicity including West Indian, Asian-Pakistani, Indian, Chinese, African- Ghana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Congo, Polish and other Eastern European and others. This is the birthplace of William Shakespeare and the destination for five million visitors a year many from overseas. In our research of various places where a church plant was needed we found that there was no church group compatible with our doctrinal beliefs and practices. In other words there was not a church that we could be part of. Since then we have learned that after three years every evangelical church disintegrates, that is why there is no evangelical church in the town. Our goal then was to establish an evangelical Bible believing fellowship which is culturally relevant in that town.

After several years of passing out leaflets by the weekly Rother Street market, Bridge Street and other places, visitation and house to house visits and meeting and talking to hundreds of people we came to the decision that it was time to begin services and hope for Bible studies and other disciple-making activities. There was interest from several local churches and others. One of the highlights of the pre-church ministry was having the concert pianist Sam Rotman from Arizona in concert for us. We had two concerts in Stratford upon Avon, two in Birmingham and one in Wolverhampton. These concerts helped in the consolidating of our efforts to start the ministry.

We began a morning service in September 2012 in a community centre but three years later the community centre was closed and we began meeting in the rented room of a hotel for our Sunday services. We returned to the community centre was refurbished and met for a while, then returned to the hotel. A year ago the hotel was closed so that refugees could be accommodated. We were gracefully allowed to meet in Tyler House Tyler Street.

We have spoken to very many people about the Lord in Stratford upon Avon. Here is a sample of memorable quotes:

  • No, thank you. I am an atheist (a lovely gentleman)

  • Don’t waste your time on us, we are Jewish.

  • My husband is a military historian he does not believe in God.

  • I was a Christian but now I work for the university and in science so I do not believe anymore. I asked “Are you a PhD?” She responded “No”. I said I am. She said “I have no time now. We will talk again someday.”

  • I am a Buddhist I do not need Christ.

Our plans are to continue in this church planting ministry with various activities in our discipleship making and outreach. Numerical growth is very slow.