Washington church of Christ
Tyne & Wear, England
The '''Washington church of Christ''' is a non-denominational church which serves the population of Washington, in England. The congregation includes members from the city of Sunderland and from Chester-le-Street.
Contents
2 Meetings
3 History
3.1 Founding
3.2 The building
4.1.1 Asylum seekers, Refugees, ESOL classes and the crèche
4.1.2 Computer suite and Room hire
4.1.3 Christians Against Poverty
5 Studies
6 Doctrine
7 Relationship with other churches
8 Name
Washington church of Christ
The old school building
Albert place
Columbia
Washington
NE38 7BW
Telephone = (0191) 416 1300
Website = www.wcoc.org.uk
Mid-week evening meetings are usually held in members’ homes, for social time, singing, study and prayer. Members are currently completing a study of all four gospels, combined and are about to begin a study of the book of Acts.
On Sunday mornings a Bible study is held from 10.00 am at the church’s building. Members are studying the letters of the New Testament in the likely order in which they were written. The book of Philippians is next to be studied.
Sunday morning worship begins at 11.00, till 12.00.
The fellowship began in 1988 when four families were invited to set up home in the town. These were sponsored by Olton Church of Christ and Broadway Church of Christ in Lubbock, Texas, with a view to the project lasting 5 years. The families involved were Harry and Isabel Hardy (from England) along with Al and Linda Meakes, Rodney and Margaret Plunket and Rodney and Michele Thomas. [8] In the end the project carried on for many more years with the Thomas family staying till 2006! [9] During that time both Rodney Plunket and Rodney Thomas obtained Doctorates at Durham University.
At first, the founding families ran the church. When the Hardy, Meakes and Plunket families left the area, the church was led by congregational meetings, with Rodney Thomas, Joseph Hannan and Frank Reid named as Ministers. At a later stage Rodney Thomas and Trevor Owens were appointed Elders of the congregation. With the reduction in regular attendance and the departure of the Thomas family in 2006, Trevor Owens and Andrew Hoseason continue to teach and speak, without titled roles.
The church originally met in one another's homes or rented community venues for meetings, until 27 July 1995 when a local primary school building closed and the church was able to use it for a peppercorn rent. In 2002 the building was bought outright. In a recording of a sermon "For the sake of Jesus Christ" given to the Broadway Church of Christ on 08 August 2004, Rodney Thomas retells the story:
"We struggled in those early days as we met in rented facilities that often reeked with the odour of stale beer and cigarettes because the building had often been rented the night before for parties. Sometimes we even had to remove half empty beer bottles the next morning before we could begin our worship service.
This was a difficult environment in which to bring guests. Most people on Britain, when they think of a church, they think of a cathedral or a minster, not an old Miner’s Welfare Hall that smells.
We prayed and pleaded with God to show us the way forward and 9 years ago (in 1995) an old school building was due to close. It was small for a school but it was huge for us! We decided to ask the City council if we could buy the building. We had no idea what we would do with such a large space or how we would pay for it….
We asked and we were given the building. The Headteacher walked out of the door, handed us the keys and said “its yours”. We didn’t sign a lease or anything. They just handed it to us.
One of the older members… (Frank Cooper) who was always very practical at looking at the physical side of everything, walked into that building for the first time and I thought he was going to cry! He stood there in awe. I will never forget his words. He said “this is truly a miracle from God!”
We now had this huge building in which to meet. It didn’t stink. It didn’t smell. We still didn’t know what we were going to do with the building and why we needed so much space. We tried a lot of different things over the years we did a lot of wonderful work for the community. We moved a lot of furniture! And the church continued to mature in its now cavernous building!"
For further history please follow the following links: Church Building
The church was active in providing help to asylum seekers and refugees when many were living in the area, prior to their cases being determined. The church building was host to the Washington Asylum Seekers Project, which provided practical help and encouragement. The church later began English lessons (ESOL) at the building and employed teachers under contract from the City of Sunderland College. A crèche was provided, registered with OFSTED and managed by Eileen Stephenson.
The church's building is open to the public and available for hire. A computer suite is on site, provided by the local council.
In May 2012 the church is set to begin a project as the minor partner with Bethany Christian Centre in Houghton-le-Spring to provide money and debt advice via Christians Against Poverty, beginning in May 2012.
On 24 November 2002 the church completed thirty months study of the role of men and women in the church, from scriptures and culture at the time the scriptures were written. The Biblical text was considered in the original languages; Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac and Greek rather than in English. This study resulted in changes to church policy, particularly in regard to formal worship services, such that women were able to participate to a greater extent. A copy of the study summary is available via the church website.
The church:
* is Bible-believing and evangelical.
* celebrates the Lord's Supper weekly.
* follows believer's baptism in water, either in the North Sea, Finchale Priory on the River Wear or other means. Baptism, along with a confession of faith is commonly seen as the point at which the individual's faith is publically known and celebrated.
* does not have a membership list since it is felt that membership of Jesus' church is a matter between the believer and Jesus. However, the church is set up as a charity, which has a list of members. Since membership of the charity is open to the public, it does not follow that membership of the charity equals membership of the church.
The church holds the following core beliefs:
* one Creator God.
* in the truth of the Bible message.
* we are all important God’s eyes. .
* we are all His children, made in the image of God’s love.
* we have all fallen short of God’s standards and are separated from God because of this God says that the things we have done wrong deserve death.
* God sent His son Jesus to die in our place. If we accept that he did this for us, we are "saved" from eternal death and given the gift of eternal life with God. This is often called a new life or being born again and we believe we should show our commitment to this new life with God by being immersed as believers either in the sea or a river as an image of being immersed in this new life with God.
* that our response to this great gift from God must be to try our best each day to live the way God wants, in thanks for him loving us and saving us.
Following these beliefs, the church meet together to worship Him and work together to help others because we want to express our thanks to God in these ways. We do this through spreading the good news that God can save us and heal the separation between us and Him, and, through expressing God’s love through acts of kindness and charity to those in the community.
Although autonomous, the church has retained similar traits to the Churches of Christ such as a'capella singing. It enjoys fellowship with the other churches in Washington and the City of Sunderland and often joins in ecumenical events.
As an autonomous fellowship, the church's beliefs and practices do not necessarily follow those of any other fellowship or group. On occasions, this has caused tension within the church and with other congregations. The church and its ministers have, at times, received calls and emails from other fellowships threatening to "disfellowship" the church. On one occasion, the leaders were told that unless they changed their policies and practices, no interaction between the youth of the two churches would be permitted, though the matter under discussion had nothing to do with the youth or youth ministry. In a sermon, Rodney Thomas expanded on this, calling on believers to take up the right spiritual weapons. A written version can be found here and an audio version here
The name of the church is properly written with the lower case "c" in "church". This is understood to reflect a description of the congregation as a group of people with a common purpose. The alternative is to write an upper case "C" in "Church" which constitutes the name or title of a larger group or denomination, which is not the case. Since the church is independent and autonomous in nature, its name should not suggest affinity to a denomination. Further information about this can be found here.
Denomination: Non-denominational
The church and friends on the occasion of the Thomas family returning to Texas in 2004.
The north eastern view of the church's building.
The oldest known photograph of the old primary school.