Heaton Baptist Church Building Project: Equipping our church and community for the future
Building for the future
For more than 100 years, Heaton Baptist Church has been serving the local community of Heaton and Byker. In that time the needs of both our church and our community have changed enormously. In order to meet the challenges of a new millennium the church has gone through some significant heart searching in order to provide improved resources to accommodate its current activities and to more effectively serve the community.
As a result we plan to develop our existing church halls into an attractive and accessible centre which will house church activities already bursting at the seams and provide facilities for work in, and with the community.
Through its building, projects and people, the church seeks to proclaim a unified message: that it is a source of new life and a place of welcome.
Our hope is that this will make a significant contribution to the spiritual and social wellbeing of our community and a place in which we will be able to welcome you soon.
"Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your curtains wide. Don't hold back: lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes!" Isaiah 54 v 2
Broadening our vision
Heaton Baptist Church is a dynamic and growing community of Christian believers: more than 200 people are members and around 250 people attend the Sunday morning service. The congregation consists of people of all ages, but includes a large number of young families.
The church sanctuary, built in 1897, was re-furbished several years ago. But the adjoining halls and ancillary rooms, used regularly during the week, are poorly laid out, with inadequate space for Junior Church, an unwelcoming entrance and poor disabled access. These buildings are used on a regular basis by many different groups of all ages throughout the week and are available for use by other local organisations, individuals and community groups. The church's vision therefore is to expand its activities to better serve the local community.
With this building project we aim to:
- provide welcoming access for all users;
- offer increased room and office space for church programmes and community events;
- and create a meeting place for community groups and church-based outreach activities.
The plan agreed in September 2003 is to:
- demolish existing halls and rebuild on the site;
- construct a three floor building (with lift) that will comprise halls, kitchen, creche, meeting rooms and a dedicated, self-contained youth zone;
- and build a welcoming new entrance.
The plans were approved on January 2005 following lengthy discussions and negotiations with planners and councillors. Local residents and businesses were also consulted, and many have welcomed the project, believing it will help to rejuvenate the area.
The estimated cost of demolition and reconstruction is just over £1 million. The Baptist Union Corporation will lend up to 70% of the total cost repayable over a 10-year period subject to the church raising the remainder as a deposit.
Most of the money has been raised by church members and regular attendees. Pledge and gift days, held in September 2003, July 2005 and June 2007 enabled church members and friends to make both one-off gifts and pledges of regular payments to the building fund. All donors were encouraged to gift aid their donations if they are UK taxpayers. A small funding gap still exists, but we are hoping to raise this from local and national charitable trusts and funding bodies.
The contract for the demolition and rebuild has been awarded to PF Burridge, a well known local, family-owned building contractor, and the demolition work is expected to begin in May 2008.
For further details, contact:
Jeremy Wood,Heaton Baptist Church,
Heaton Road,
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 5HN.
Tel 0191 265 7044, email office@heatonbaptist.org