Designed By Station Hill Baptist Church
Chippenham
Project Type: Single Church
Project Area: North
Project Address:
Station Hill
Chippenham
Wiltshire
Postcode: SN15 1EG
Project History & Affiliations:
For the past 10 years, Station Hill Baptist Church in Chippenham has employed a full time
Youth Worker and over that time have developed their work with children and young people
(especially teenagers) through church based groups/activities and ‘outreach’ in the local
community. Good links have been built up with the 3 local secondary schools and the Youth
Development Service, as well as many of the other local churches.
SHBC has a membership of about 160 members and a Sunday AM congregation of 200
which includes 80-100 children & young people. SHBC is a member of the Baptist Union
of Great Britain and the Evangelical Alliance.
Structure & Vision of the Project:
The church employs a full-time Minister (David Slater), a full-time Youth Worker (who will be
leaving Chippenham summer 2008) and a part-time Pastoral Worker (David Thompson).
Sharing in the leadership are two Elders and a Church Council.
The mission statement for our youth and children’s work is: ‘Helping young people reach
their potential’; and in doing so we aim to provide a safe and secure environment for our
youth and children’s work; and quality and committed leadership for our children and
young people.
About the location of the Project:
Our building in Station Hill has always made us a town centre church and due to lack of
space we meet at the Neeld Hall on Sunday mornings, which is just off the High Street.
Most of our youth & community work is contained in Chippenham either from our building
or working with Chippenham’s schools etc. We have set out to be ‘church at the heart of the
the town’ in more than just location – but are also involved in a number of North Wiltshire
wide initiatives.
About the youth work of the Project:
In addition to our Sunday AM worship & youth/children’s activities we run Rock Solid for
11-14s and Matrix[reloaded] for 14-18s on Friday nights on Friday nights. Both have 30+
regulars and a good team of volunteer youth workers.
Young people & leaders from these groups are also involved in bi-monthly youth gatherings
with young people & leaders from several other local churches – for worship, social action
and events like soul survivor.
Volunteers from SHBC are also working with the Youth Development Service to run a Friday
night Youth Café at the local youth centre.
Our Youth Worker, the full time Circuit Youth Worker & others are also working closely with
the Secondary Schools taking RE/PSHE lessons, assemblies + lunchtime clubs.