Barnabas Community Church, Shrewsbury

Barnabas Community Church
Barnabas Community Church logo
Barnabas Community Church
Shown within Shropshire
Coordinates: 52°42′18″N 2°44′47″W / 52.704878°N 2.746390°W / 52.704878; -2.746390
Location Shrewsbury, SY3
Country United Kingdom
Denomination Newfrontiers(Since 1996;) Evangelical
Previous denomination Baptist (pre-1983); non-denominational (1983-96)
Website barnabascommunitychurch.com
History
Founded 1983; 25 years ago
The Barnabas Church centre

Barnabas Community Church is an independent, charismatic evangelical, Church in Shrewsbury, England, and is in many ways a product of the UK British New Church Movement. It is part of the Newfrontiers family of churches and a member of the Evangelical Alliance.[1] The congregation meets every Sunday at 10am at the Barnabas Centre, in Coleham.

History

Barnabas Christian Fellowship was founded in 1983, after the Crowmoor Baptist Church outgrew its building at the time. The initial group was about 80 strong. Restricted by only having limited capacity in meeting rooms above a pub, as the church grew, it separated into two congregations for a three-year period. In 1993, the two congregations reunited and began meeting together at the Wakeman School, now part of the Shrewsbury Sixth Form College,[2] with a clear sense that a new "home" was needed.

In 1996 Barnabas formally became part of Newfrontiers, an international family of similar churches.

In 1999 Barnabas formally adopted a cell group model for church life - now referred to as Midweek Groups - having been inspired by other churches' usage.

About the same time the Alpha Course was adopted and has been run twice a year since then.[3]

The Barnabas Centre

Between 1983 and 1985 the church met in various public halls including the Music Hall, now the Shrewsbury Museum,[4] and the Gateway arts centre.[5] Between 1985 and 1996 the church rented a suite of rooms above the Lloyds pub in Shrewsbury town centre. In 1996 the church moved to the Longden Coleham Territorial Army Centre which it expanded and now uses as a permanent base.[6]

Community activities

The Barnabas Centre is now a multi-use church centre[7] with many community agencies using the facilities, as the Church's variety of rooms - sitting 2 to 550 - are ideal for a wide range of purposes. The building also has a central location and limited car parking spaces.

Since the beginning of the 'Shrewsbury Half Marathon', Barnabas has played an active part in its running; for one Sunday a year – the church closes the usual 10:00 am service and instead provides a water station outside its gates, as well as health and safety officials and marshals from the congregation.

In term time, the Church also runs a Friday youth group, 'Impact' [8] for students aged 11-18 (School years 7-13); a 'KidzKlub'[9] on Fridays for kids aged 5-11 and a toddler group on Tuesdays (See Barnabas Community Projects.)

Barnabas Community Projects

Logo of the Charity launched in 2015

In 2015, Barnabas Community Church launched a new charity, 'Barnabas Community Projects,' to cater for some of the towns social action needs. The food bank, which had been run for many years, became 'Food Bank Plus,' incorporating two new projects:

  • 360 Journey to work, which is a confidential service dedicated to helping people gain skills to apply for jobs, including writing CV's, one-to-one mentoring and a bespoke ten-week course to help them with difficulties they have experienced when applying for work.
  • Barnabas Money Advice, which was also in existence before 2015, which provides confidential totally free service covering debt advice, budgeting and form filling when applying for benefits, amongst other financial problem help.

The charity also runs cooking courses, gardening projects; Barneytots toddlers group and café; a Cage Football service available for local non-profit organisations to borrow/book and Eclipse Child bereavement service - which sees children being referred to by schools across Shrewsbury and Shropshire to receive specialist help to overcome their loss.

References

  1. ↑ Church Search
  2. ↑
  3. ↑ Barnabas Community Church | Alpha UK
  4. ↑
  5. ↑
  6. ↑ "Shrewsbury". The drill hall project. Retrieved 24 September 2017.
  7. ↑
  8. ↑
  9. ↑
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