When visited:
8th May 2005, 10:30am
Location:
Adswood Rd, just the Cheadle side of the West Coast Main Line
Type of Service:
Fairly informal "normal service", no communion.
Welcome:
Generally good. A few "hello"s at the start, people chatty and welcoming afterwards - tea and coffee offered.
First Impressions:
The building is basically painted breeze blocks with banners; about 50 seats were out, and it got to be about half full. There was a healthy range of ages. It came across as quite working-class (that's not a bad thing). Seems to be lots of football-based work and outreach - the church has a 5 a side football pitch.
Music:
There was a clavinova-type keyboard at the front, but no-one playing it. Songs were projected onto the wall via Powerpoint; most of the music was MP3s played through the PA system, there was one Hillsongs DVD at the start. Singing was pretty good on the ones they knew, and there didn't seem much resistance to old or new stuff.
Sermon:
It wasn't the regular "minister" doing it. There was a long thing read from the "Make Poverty History" website. I was pleasantly surprised when there was a sermon later. It was 19 mins on social justice. It wasn't a Bible-centred sermon, but I didn't disagree with anything that was said (except for a "legitimate" misapplication of the parable of the banquet) and it was Bible-influenced. There were Bibles (NIV paperback) round the church, but they didn't seem to be referred to.
Website:
www.chelwoodbc.org.uk
(Internet Exploder only)
Overall:
Definitely a Christian church, and seems to be fairly healthy and growing. I think they'd probably benefit more from a slightly more Bible-centred approach to preaching and understanding. I'd be reasonably happy coming here, as long as they let me preach from time to time!
4 comments:
Just come across your blog site by chance. Thought the review of Chelwood Baptist church was fairly accurate and
reasonably encouraging. Given that it was not a 'normal' service as such, I wonder if you have ventured back? If not, can I encourage you to do so - and, subject to you revealing a bit more about your identity and your theology, then maybe you could preach! As you said we are a friendly, quite lively fellowship and we are willing to
explore new expressions of our faith to become the church that Jesus would like us to be.
Hi!
I didn't make it back to Chelwood and I'm leaving Stockport to train for the C of E ministry in a couple of weeks! So thanks, but I probably won't make it.
i do not beleive for one minute that anyone whom attends or associates with the church can be classed as normal, these are wonderful caring and considerate people that have done more in these last few years for our community than has ever been done.I am a mother whose son chose the path him self to be baptised and follow the church,and this is because these wonderful people are patient and understanding and go far beyond the call of duty. look at all the fundraising they have done!!!they are far from "normal"
The web site address for Chelwood has changed.
www.chelwoodbaptist.org.uk
New life Centre
Larkhill
Rock Solid
Stockport
Chelwood Cafe
Sorry about the text just trying to get the site up the search engine rankings- Mike :-)
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