When we left Beaconsfield Baptist, we were directed to a particular church near Woodley called “Hilltop”; this was an ex-Baptist church that was now a “community church” … the doctors involved with Beaconsfield knew a group of doctors near Reading who were involved with leading Hilltop. We had also been told about a “new” Baptist Church at Woodley. So we agreed between ourselves that for fairness we would try both of them for 5 weeks each, then at the end of the 10 weeks we’d go to Hilltop. But things worked out “otherwise”; we never quite felt right at Hilltop, and in the 4th week the preacher said something about Hilltop having a fine reputation but lacked love – that summed up our feelings precisely. By contrast, almost as soon as we got to Woodley Baptist (which met in the Coronation Hall at 9.30am on a Sunday … that fact alone put me off! I was sure God couldn’t possibly want us to join a church that met so early!!) we felt welcomed and at home. As it happened, when Dad came to join us in 1982 he probably would have wanted to go to a Baptist Church anyway. Our first morning was deep snow – I remember we pulled Adrian and Chris on a sledge, rather than use the car; on the way I was wondering about the new minister they’d just appointed (we had happened to be there on a “church spying” mission, when he had preached “with a view”) and saying to myself that I hoped we’d be close to him, in the sense of having similar outlook. Almost the first thing we learned was that he (Stuart Woodward) was the young churches first minister, and he and his wife Betty lived in a close just off our street – so was very close to us geographically (as well). Stuart was a very gifted Bible teacher and was an excellent “first minister” for the church.
Adrian and Chris seemed to settle into the children’s work quite well; they met in the Guide Hut behind the Coronation Hall, and Pam Mullin (universally loved and known as Auntie Pam!) was one of the folk who looked after them. We became members 33 and 34 of the church, but from mid-1982 the membership grew massively, doubling every 2 years on average. Much of this was because Woodley had a high housing turnover, but also because Stuart was a gifted preacher, so most people who tried WBC stayed there. In our early years there, it was a fairly traditional church. Change happened gently (as it did in the musical side of things); in September 84 we started the first house-groups – just one to begin with, looking at what house-groups are for, then a set of them based geographically (I led one of them). Then in 1986 they all came together to look at the principles of church leadership (plurality, accountability etc) and following that the constitution was amended to permit the election of Elders; Ron Manning, David Partington and myself were the “founding elders”, and on December 15th 1986 there was a Service of Recognition at St James church, with Geoffrey Reynolds (the Area Superintendent) and Gordon Thomas (Secretary of the Berkshire Association) present to represent the wider denomination. I remained an elder there until just before we left WBC, with Tony Peacock and John Honeybourne joining the team during those years.
A number of people in the church had “always” wanted to have their own building “one day”; using the Coronation Hall was fine for Sundays, even though it was becoming a bit full, but was not easily available at other times of the week; we could borrow another church “if available”, but planning for any mid-week event was difficult. Church meetings were in someone’s house, and resembled the proverbial can of sardines. In 1986 the opportunity was presented; a large housing development was taking place on the Woodley Airfield[1] site, and as part of planning permission had to delegate land for “community purposes” – but no one had wanted to develop or use it; if the church was willing to let out rooms to other community groups when not needed by the church, we could buy the plot of land for £1. We did. Then we started to save up to build on it … architects, builders, designs, planning permission (they wanted the church roof raised higher, so it would dominate the plot) and so on. The building was handed over to the church and opened in 1988; Katie and I were just able to clean ourselves up while the last guests were arriving – we had been cleaning the toilets up to the last minute. When the church committed itself to the building it had about 80 members – a massive cost per member; by the time it opened the membership was about 120; within 6 months of the opening, the new church was over half full for Sunday mornings.
After the building opened, a number of things became possible .. we could purchase a piano for the church, and start a playgroup – Katie helped there for a number of years. After a while there was a suggestion of expanding our youth work to include young people from non-church backgrounds (a “gang” of them was often in the precinct outside the church); this idea led to a fascinating reaction from Adrian and Chris – “look, you told us to avoid trouble-makers at school; we spend all day keeping out of their way – now you want to bring them into the youth club!”. So that development didn’t happen – but over the years the youth group grew and “cemented”; later on a number of young people from other churches started coming along to our services, among them a group of girls including a Helen Orme (of whom much more later!); we have learned in 2024 from a school friend of Helen’s who lives in Skipton that the “word” at Kendrick Girls School at the time was that “Woodley Baptist had a ‘dishy’ group of lads”.
What can I say about my work as an Elder? We shared the leadership and pastoral care of the church with Stuart, meeting most Saturday mornings to pray and discuss together. We took a share of the service leading and preaching duties. And when someone called for special prayers, it was usually Stuart and one of us who would go round together. Of course there were highs and lows – some people, despite much prayer, anointing with oil and more, did not get better. But we also say miracles .. one that stands out in my memory was when a lady in the church asked for prayer for fertility problems – she desperately wanted a second child, and medicine had so far failed to help her – so Stuart and I went round to pray with her and her husband; the moment we entered the house the Holy Spirit surrounded the four of us, so much so that it felt as if static electricity was about to ignite their home; about two months later Stuart and I were shown the ultrasound image, and in time their family was duly increased. There were many others of a less spectacular nature.
After a number of years, Stuart felt it right to move on, and gave us his resignation not knowing where he would be going next (this horrified the Baptist “authorities” – the normal thing was to find a new church first and tell the old church later) because he felt this was the right thing to do. As it happened, he did not have to wait very long, and moved to Kenton Essex. We Elders had to lead the church through the period of seeking a new pastor, and eventually the church called David Barter. He came and soon fell easily into the system Stuart had pioneered (and his wife Margaret was a valuable clarinet player for the music group too). David was well established by the time my father died, and led his funeral service.
Eventually, Katie and I (by this time Adrian and Chris had fled the nest) began to feel that our time at WBC was closing. We had been there from a small congregation in the village hall to a membership of over 200, in a new building, and in a very settled state; we were feeling too that it was becoming a little too “successful”, in that when a new project was set up the first question was becoming “who can we pay to do this for us” rather than “which of us will do this” or in other words the church was becoming less of a family and more of a Christian organisation. Of course I shared these feelings with the other Elders and others, but others didn’t see things the same way.
So our next move was to look around, and in 2002 we started going to a new Baptist Church in Lower Earley, which met in a community hall (like Woodley had in the early days). They were a very friendly group of people – they had a minister, with a Welsh name and accent, whom we only heard preach once (too fast for us to decode the accent!); the rest of the time church members led the service and preached, which we thought was an excellent thing; so we decided to ask for membership there. On the next Sunday morning when we were about to mention this, it was announced that the deacons had decided that they would ask the minister to leave, for reasons unstated (but they had, it seems, consulted widely with Baptist leaders on the wisdom and procedure for this). It did momentarily cross our minds as to the wisdom of joining, but as this announcement was a total shock to the congregation, we found out later that the fact of our asking to join at that time was reassuring; of course, we were able to talk to people about it as neutrals, not having a clue as to the background. We became members in January 2003.
We quickly settled in, and in next to no time I was playing for services and became a deacon, in time to be a part of the search for a new minister. And in next to no time, we were once again looking at the possibility of a totally new church building (my experience of Woodley Baptist came in useful). The ideal plot was an area of waste land a few yards away from the community centre, owned by the local Council; we were able to buy it in 2003 for £100 (a bit more than the £1 Woodley Baptist paid for their land). In 2005 we found architects and they came up with a number of designs – we decided on the more unexpected design, where the building occupied 2 sides of the square plot, leaving space for a garden on the “inside” of the plot. The next stage in 2007-8 was to appoint builders, and work started. The walls went up fairly quickly – and work stopped; a neighbour, who had objected to the project throughout, had worked out that the back wall of the building was closer to her property than planned. After a lot of head-scratching as to how this had happened, it turned out that the architects had based the whole design on a plan supplied by the Council – they had trusted it too much, as the actual plot was 2 feet smaller than the plan. We had then to apply for retrospective planning permission with amended plans, and thankfully it was granted (we had to provide “screening” along the neighbour’s property boundary, but otherwise unchanged). After that the building proceeded to completion, and was opened on 7th November 2009. My role was to advise on “tech” and with Katie and Tony and Angela Baker to shop for and plant shrubs and small trees around the garden area. As with Woodley, opening the building caused a further growth of members.
So in 2011 we left to move to Embsay, after only 8 years at Lower Earley. Was it worth it? – of course! While we had kept up our friendship with the folk at Woodley Baptist, we’d joined a church at the time of shock, and seen them into a new ministry, a new confidence, a new building, and lots of new members. We have been back to visit a few times in subsequent years, most recently in 2024, and found the church pretty full, prospering, and with people who in 2011 were young Christians now taking prominent roles in the church.
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[1] The home of small aircraft manufacturers such as Link, and famous as being the place where during World War 2 Douglas Bader lost his legs in a flying accident.