WELCOME to the
Minister: Mr
Ewan King
Church Secretary and Treasurer: Mrs Gaynor Humphreys
1. Who are we?
6. Minister’s letter for this month
7. Secretary’s news for this month
We are a warm and friendly church
in the heart of Hampstead,
Our History
Our openness owes much to our forebears – the Baptists of Hampstead – who, in the nineteenth century, worshipped in an upstairs room of a house on Holly Bush Hill. There in 1825 the church decided to open its Communion Service to all believers (whether baptised as believers or not), even though this sadly led to some setting up a rival ‘Strict Baptist Church’ in New End. So for us, ‘openness’ is a word which should characterise our church today. We welcome all seekers after God’s truth, whatever their race, creed or sexuality.
We owe our building (which opened in 1861) not least to the
generosity of James Harvey – a
Worship Sundays at
The Service follows a traditional pattern of prayers, Bible readings, hymns and sermon. The Lord’s Supper is celebrated on the first Sunday of each month and all who love the Lord Jesus Christ and seek to be his disciples are welcome to join us around his table.
After each service we have coffee together in the vestibule at the front of the chapel – an opportunity for informal contact, and a chance to welcome visitors.
The Contact Club Sundays
This meets in our downstairs hall, where some of the city’s
homeless can gather for food and friendship. This is a joint venture run by
members of
Bible study Alternate Thursdays
Here we meet to study and discuss a particular book or part of the Bible. Our main aim is to discover what (if anything) it means for us today.
Missionary Support Group The
first Tuesday of every month
This group meets to find out more about the work of the Baptist Missionary Society throughout the world. We listen to tapes made by those working overseas, discuss the issues they raise, and pray for them. For details about our current venue contact the Minister.
Saturday coffee morning
Here we especially welcome visitors who want to see around our lovely chapel, and / or make contact with those of us who worship here.
We also sell donated books and
bric-a-brac in aid, not of our congregation, but of various charitable causes. As
a result, in the last year alone we have been able to send donations to
Christian Aid, the National Children’s Home, Help the Aged, the Alzheimer's
Society, Cancer Research, UNICEF, the
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Worship (New Year’s Day and Communion service) conducted by Ewan King The Contact Club |
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8 |
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2012 |
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Worship conducted by Ewan King The Contact Club |
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15 |
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Worship conducted by Ewan King Special members’ meeting to discuss the future Ministry at
The Contact Club |
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Worship conducted by The Rev. Dr Marie E Isaacs The Contact Club |
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29 |
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Worship conducted by Ewan King The Contact Club |
The Minister: Mr Ewan King
e-mail: ewan_king@mac.com (Wednesday to Sunday)
6. MINISTER’S LETTER FOR JANUARY 2012
Did it ever strike you that new year’s resolutions are invariably resolutions to improve? Or have you ever marked the new year by resolving to lose your temper more often - to exercise less - or perhaps to spend less time with friends or children? By this logic, you’d think our lives would be in tighter shape with every passing year. with the improvements for January 2012 soon added to the success stories of 2011.
Why then does it often feel that our lives are slipping further out of control year on year? Perhaps there is a problem with our whole system of new year’s resolutions. The truth is that real change always means a redistribution of energy. If you pay more attention in one direction, you will become inattentive in another; to improve here is to get worse there. If we plan to make an overall improvement by ‘just trying harder’ in one area, then usually we’re just kidding ourselves.
As a Christian and a pastor, this gives me a problem at the new year’s turn. I would like to begin 2012 with a friendly challenge. How could you renew your Christian walk this year? When did God last speak to you through a new friend? Or through a book you had never read before? When did you last take time to consider your strategies for keeping your spiritual experience fresh? Spiritual refreshment might come to you through new habits of hospitality. Or maybe it will be more a matter of new spiritual disciplines - going on a retreat, for example, or on ‘prayer walks’. You could find yourself taking your Bible - and your prayers - to an art gallery, or an industrial estate, or a National Trust garden.
But this is the point at which I need to remember not to ignore the problem with new year’s resolutions. If I plan to become a Better Christian™ in 2012 by ‘just trying harder’, then probably I’m just kidding myself. The energy for change has to come from somewhere, and I don’t want to neglect good habits I already have at the expense of my new resolutions.
The Good News is that a world in which God lives and acts isn’t a ‘zero-sum game’. A church in which God’s Spirit moves doesn’t have to get by on a finite spiritual budget; nor are we forced into the periodic attempts we make to emphasise this or that aspect of our Christian life. Instead, we are encouraged to “ask God” for the wisdom to discern the way ahead: “ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you” (James 1.5).
If we feel there is room for improvement at the turn of the year, our resolutions cannot and must not be a private matter. In Christianity there is no room for self-serving self-improvement. Anyone looking to his or her own ‘will-power’ to bring about lasting improvement is liable to be disappointed at best, and at worst, to get a nasty surprise. Let us look beyond our fitful and frantic efforts, to the God who gives generously and ungrudgingly. It is from God alone that we will receive the true wisdom that is given not to one or another of God’s people, for private enjoyment, but corporately, to one and all and for the benefit of all. May our resolution be to seek this wisdom as we seek God together in 2012.
With love,
Ewan
7. SECRETARY’S NEWS FOR JANUARY 2012
We are slowly progressing with plans to underpin the Church to stop the subsidence that is cracking the masonry in the north wall. There is a hitch at present that is causing a delay while a modified proposal is drawn up to with which all our neighbours can agree. We are still aiming to start as soon as we can in 2012. I will report back to members as soon as there is any new information to share.
We will have to find a new home for the Contact Club whilst all the drilling and filling take place inside the church building. The work should take six weeks in total, but who knows! Ewan King has been talking to other churches to see who can help. The pavement outside the Church will be affected as the contractors’ equipment, including the generator, will be placed there. One of our side doors will be our only access from Monday to Friday, but every weekend access will be cleared to the main doors so we can have our Sunday services as usual.
We hope the Saturday coffee mornings can resume as soon as the work is completed.
Members at the church meeting on
4 December agreed to call a further meeting on 15 January, immediately after
the Sunday service, with one major item – to discuss the future of the Ministry
at
Our friends at the Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel in Hampstead are having an
induction service to welcome their 37th Minister, Rev. Dr. Patrick T.
O'Neill. The service takes place at
Do keep us up to date with your news.
Every good wish for 2012,
Gaynor Humphreys
Church Secretary and Treasurer