Logo

 

Banner Image:   Baptist-Times-banner-2000x370-
Template Mode:   Baptist Times
Icon
    Post     Tweet


'Intentional about living our faith as part of daily life' 


A grant from Baptist Insurance Company is helping HBC Chester fund development of its initial community, Blacon Central, into a missional base providing centralised leadership, training and support to other missional communities throughout Chester 


HBC Chester



In 2019, Hoole Baptist Church, Chester (HBC) began developing its discipleship mission and committed to establishing different missional communities under the umbrella of one leadership church.  
 
A grant from Baptist Insurance Company has allowed HBC to develop its initial missional community, Blacon Central, into a ‘missional base’, which provides training, leadership and support to other missional communities in broken and deprived areas of Chester. 
 

Changing focus transformed Hoole Baptist Church

Seven years ago, HBC began asking itself tough questions to understand the ‘whys’ behind the ‘whats’ of how and who it was as a church. Questions like, “Why do we do Sundays?” became thresholds to bigger questions and deeper understandings about who the church wanted to be. 
 
Minister the Revd Andy Glover said, 'This is how we got to where we are, really. These questions helped us transition from a more traditional church model to one where integrated mission and discipleship are front and centre of what we do.

'By establishing flexible missional communities outside of Sunday services, we became more intentional about living our faith as part of daily life.'
 
The church’s other focus became to bring healing and wholeness to broken lives and communities. In 2015, HBC established a missional community on the Blacon Estate, which has a population of 12,000 and high levels of deprivation. Within two years, a second community was also flourishing on the estate, growing around the families of a local school and children’s club group.
 
Anne Bishop, Chair of the BIC Grants Committee, said, 'We are delighted to support the work of HBC in developing its missional communities. Not only is our grant helping provide training and support to other core teams, it is facilitating important work with children and young people on Blacon Estate.

'The Blacon Central ‘missional base’ is transforming lives in an area where it’s really needed and supporting other missional communities to do the same.'
 

Success of Blacon Central spreading far and wide

The Revd Ed Green, Missional Communities Leader, said, 'We’ve incorporated missional living with our everyday lives, involving our children and school communities. We’re on the brink of something very exciting in Blacon. We’ve seen people come to faith, be baptised and continue to grow.'
 
HBC now has eight missional communities across Chester and plans to extend the network into rural areas, providing centralised leadership and support to individual communities, so each can focus on their mission while remaining supported and connected within one church. 

 

Baptist Insurance is passionate about supporting people and organisations who really make a difference by enriching the lives of others. One way we do this is through our grant giving to the Baptist family including evangelistic projects. 

Over the past ten years alone it has given almost £1.5million in grants and is keen to build on this further. For more information visit baptist-insurance.co.uk/grants



 
Baptist Times, 21/07/2020
    Post     Tweet
NWBA Home Mission Stories
Examples of how Home Mission funds are being used in the North Western Baptist Association
SubArticleD2019
'We thank God for bringing these lovely families to Messy Church'
Laird Street Baptist Church in Birkenhead decided to invite the community to a Messy Church to start off the summer holidays, writes minister Cathy Buntin
'How we examined the scriptures - every day'
Sandbach Baptist Church decided to undertake an adventure—in the form of a whole church Bible reading week. Secretary George Hill explains more
'We are so emotionally overwhelmed, humbled and blessed by your kindness'
A Baptist minister who is fundraising for life-extending cancer treatment not available on the NHS meets initial £50,000 target in just one week
'New funding means we can support even more people across Chester' 
The work of a community hub based at a Baptist church has been boosted thanks to Government funding
Joint Team Leader role for Jane  
The North Western Baptist Association (NWBA) has announced the appointment of Jane Henderson as Joint Regional Minister (Team Leader), to serve alongside Phil Jump
‘They think it's amazing someone is giving something free in this world’
Motivated by his faith in Jesus, Baptist church member and deacon Graham Nicholls set up a fitness class for anyone. He explains more
     Regional News 
    Posted: 16/09/2021
    Posted: 20/12/2019
    Posted: 20/08/2019
    Posted: 12/07/2018
    Posted: 20/04/2018
    Posted: 01/11/2017