Hope began as a church plant from Rock Baptist Church in 2007 with 8 people from Rock and 3 others from Eden Baptist. The vision was to reach people who weren’t going to church in an area that wasn’t within easy reach of city centre churches, and to reach people who weren’t well—represented in those churches.
Initially, the church met in Cherry Hinton Community Junior School (now Bewick Bridge Primary) and Teversham Chapel on alternate Sunday afternoons but over the next two or three years we moved to a Sunday morning at Teversham Chapel and gradually developed into a church serving Fulbourn as well as Teversham and Cherry Hinton. We gradually grew too big for the Chapel and refurbished it to become a hub for our community activities before we moved to Teversham School for our Sunday morning gatherings.
At the heart of our growth over the last decade or so has been the desire to serve the local community because of the love we ourselves have received from God. Since the church began we have served through: a language café for internationals, a café for over 55s, a monthly lunch for the same age group, a babies and toddlers group, village spring clean days, craft evenings, debt counselling and the money course through Christians Against Poverty, parenting courses, marriage courses, involvement in local festivals and events, alongside the various ways we provide support for Teversham School and work with Teversham Parish Council. Some of our Hope events, courses and groups run in Fulbourn and Cherry Hinton too. We were delighted to be able to celebrate 10 years since we planted Hope with a free community celebration to which nearly 250 people came.
We are so thankful to have experienced the church growing in number and depth so that nearly 100 people are part of Hope today – many others have been part of Hope over the years. When we began we met on a Sunday afternoon and it was largely the same group who met in a home during the week for study and prayer. From there God has grown us to having a Home Group in each of our three locations and a weekly Women’s study group, prayer meetings, various groups for children and young people, regular Christianity Explored and Life Explored Groups as well as breakfasts for men and women. We support work overseas too through our church mission partners. Our intention at the outset was that we would share the good news of Jesus with people who weren’t going to church and today more than a third of those who are part of Hope on a given Sunday weren’t part of any church when we began.