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www.bradleystokejournal.co.uk
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November 2016
News
Church to mark 25th anniversary of founding On Sunday 13th November, Bradley Stoke Evangelical Church is celebrating 25 years since the church first met together. There will be an afternoon tea at 4.30pm and a special celebration at 6pm, when Reverend Dr Steve Brady, Principal of Moorlands Bible College, will be speaking. All are welcome to join the occasion.
by the time that the Portakabins were superseded by the permanent church building in 1999, there were 70 attending on a Sunday morning, and up to 50 at an evening service. And so it came to pass, in November 1999, that a new permanent building was opened. The building began with Phase 1; Phase 2 following with replacement of the Portakabins in the mid-2000s.
Church member Alan Sully has kindly written this short history for the Bradley Stoke Journal.
The people
In the beginning
When the new town of Bradley Stoke was being planned, one of the farmers who sold his land for development, Mr David Ashman, was a Christian who lived in Stoke Gifford. He negotiated with the developers to retain a portion of land on the south east corner of Bradley Stoke, obtained planning permission for a church
Official opening of the Portakabin for church services in November 1991. L-r: Eric Olsen; Fred Goodger (representative of FIEC) and Mike Hawkins.
building and erected Portakabins on the property. He then agreed with the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC) to take on the challenge of founding a church on the site. The FIEC
appointed two ‘church planters’: Eric Olsen from the USA and Mike Hawkins who commenced following an inauguration in November 1991. The attendance at Sunday services slowly increased until
The congregation was originally made up of local Christians who had been attracted from other churches or were committed to establishing the church. Waves of new members came along over time, for example, in the mid1990s, the Ministry of Defence established a procurement centre at Abbey Wood. A number of Christians transferred with their work and they proved to be
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