Howard's Blog : Ethos

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10

Press Release

This article appeared in the Gloucestershire Echo today. It is a slightly modified version of my press release below. I don't like the headline but it is generally positive. Please do click the link above and comment positively on Godfirst and new churches.

Press Release:
New Church meets in upper room.

Church is so strongly associated with buildings with spires, towers and stain glass windows where churches gather. When we talk of "going to church" we express the idea that the building is the church, but the original word for church literally means "a crowd"

Magnificent church buildings like Gloucester Cathedral were built to express something of the greatness of God, and the historic nature of some of the county's church buildings give Christianity a sense of permanence as part of the fabric of our communities.

So what are we to make of a new church that means in the upper room of the D'Fly Bar and Restaurant in Cheltenham?

Howard Kellett who leads Godfirst Church Cheltenham, which began meeting on Wednesdays at the D'Fly, commented

"It's a perfect place for a church meeting. It takes church back to its roots. An upper room is where Jesus would meet with his followers, long before Christianity built buildings and drew parish boundaries around them"

"The church is not the building. When I was a student in the early 1980's at University of Gloucestershire (when it was still St Paul's College) Holy Trinity was a church of 15 people and was in danger of closing and North Place Church across the car park was a community of almost a 100 members. On returning to Cheltenham the exterior of both buildings remains almost unchanged but Trinity is now a thriving church of around a 1000 people and North Place is now Chapel health Spa."

"Every church community was once a new church. If we want to stop this nation's slide into secularism, we need more growing churches and with churches closing at the rate of one a fortnight in the UK we are going to need many, many more new churches"

"The early followers of Jesus were less concerned with building church buildings than building authentic communities that loved God and gave hope to the despairing, friendship to the stranger, and brought good news to the poor, that's our aim at Godfirst Church".

Godfirst meets every other Wednesday 7:45pm at D'Fly Bar and Restaurant, 1 A Crescent Place Cheltenham GL50 3NX for more details visit www.godfirst.org.uk.