Designed By Brixham Baptist Church
Brixham
Project Type: Single Church
Project Area: South
Project Address:
Market Street
Brixham
Devon
Postcode: TQ5 8EU
Website: http://www.brixhambaptist.org.uk
Project History & Affiliations:
Brixham Baptist Church is over 200 years old, but the past four years have seen some exciting and significant changes that have re-established the church as a major talking point in the town. The refurbishment of our main worship area now enhances our friendly, family style services and the redevelopment of our church hall into a multi-functional two-level venue with fantastic new youth facilities has led to over 200 young people attending our clubs each week. Our latest project, a new outreach 'drop-in cafe' at the corner of our premises is ready to launch and the growth we have seen both spiritually and numerically in people attending has led to our present need to look for another worker to come alongside the Pastor and take on the role of youth & children's worker/minister to help develop things further. The church is affiliated to the Baptist Union of GB and works well with other churches in the town as part of Christians Together In Brixham.
Structure & Vision of the Project:
We have bags of vision and lots of enthusiasm to move forward into all God has for us in this town. The structures and principles we've put in place during the past four years are now starting to bear significant fruit but we need more help to keep up with the harvest! Schools are wide open to our involvement and we're respected throughout the town for our varied ministries especially our new youth & children's ministries such as 'The Island Club'. What we really need now is a good youth & children's worker/minister to come and develop this side of the work further, taking full advantage of the new 'drop-in' youth cafe, discipling young people and working alongside the Pastor and other leaders to help move our vision on. We have a great leadership team, accountable to the church meeting, but respected enough to share and implement such vision with the churches practical backing.
About the location of the Project:
Brixham is a beautiful harbour town, part of Torbay (known as the 'English Riviera') in Devon. The church buildings are set right at the heart of the town, in a central location near the harbour, right across the road from the towns main bus stops and car park. It's not a large town, about 10,000 homes, 2 secondary schools, 8 primary schools etc, but this encourages a great sense of community, where people acknowledge one another in the street and you always bump into someone you know! There's several great beaches nearby and sailing, surfing and swimming are regular past-times for locals and holiday makers alike. Tourism and fishing are the main trades and the area does attract a lot of retired people, but there's plenty of young people too and one of the greatest needs at present is better provisions for them. With its central position and new facilities our church is now set to play a key role in meeting this need.
About the youth work of the Project:
At present, about 40 youth & children attend our Sunday morning services and go out to their 'Club Sunday' groups for Christian discipleship during these times (we also have regular all-age family services and 'Surge', a Sunday night youth group). About 200 young people attend our mid-week activities however, a large number of these attending our Friday night 'Island Club' and others attending the Boys and Girls Brigade groups. The Island Club is a three level venue with fantastic facilities inc. a large sound system, lighting rig, karaoke, pool tables, a beauty salon, craft room, the latest video games etc. Both our children's and youth Island Club's attract around 75 young people each and we rota on 12 voluntary leaders at each to run them. The new outreach cafe will no doubt prove equally popular and we plan to be open most evenings with theme nights and special events. We also do lots of social events with the young people such as bowling, beach BBQ's and weekends away, often working with Linx, a local Christian charity engaged in schools-work across the bay.