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Our minister Louise can be contacted by email louise@newhavenbaptistchurch.co.uk or telephone 07873 635346. Louise takes Saturday as her day off.
We give you all a warm welcome to church. Please join
us for tea or coffee in the hall after worship and say
hello. We meet every Sunday morning at 10.30 and the
service typically lasts for about an hour. Each service
includes a talk or activity for all ages (children, teens
and adults), singing, a reading from the Bible and
prayers. A sermon is preached which focuses on the
Bible passage read, and aims to be relevant to our
place in the world of 2025. We share Holy Communion
together every third Sunday of the month.
Details of our activities below.
Sunday School
Our young people meet with us all for the early part of the service. They then have the opportunity to go into another room where they share biblical based age-related activities. All our Sunday School leaders are fully DBS checked.
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November Diary 2025
Tuesdays: Scuttlebugz each Tuesday during term time
at 10.00am.
Wednesdays: Tea and Chat 9.30am - 1pm. Food
bank, shower & washing facilities during session.
Prayer Meeting 5th and 19th at 1pm.
Fridays: Tea and Chat 9.30am-1pm. Food bank,
shower & washing facilities during session.
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In our prayers
As the bulletin is prepared there seems to be an easing of the conflict in the Middle East but things are far from settled. Please continue to pray for the suffering people there and in other parts of the world too. Let us also pray that the root causes of this and other conflicts (often politically complex) may be addressed in order to secure a more hopeful future for the people of the world. To this end we also pray for our world leaders. We give thanks that Louise, Arthur, Jack and Jonathan are now with us. Let us all keep Louise and our hardworking Deacons in our prayers. Pray for one another, especially those who may be going through difficult times. Thank God for the families and children at NBC. Please pray for them and our Sunday School teachers. We continue to pray for the persecuted church. This month let us focus particularly on the family of Pastor Raymond Koh. Pastor Raymond was abducted in Malaysia, February 2017 and nothing has been heard of him since. We’re told that a hearing is scheduled for the 5th November when what has become of him should be made known. Please keep his dear wife and (now teenage and young adult) children in your prayers.
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The (more recent) Late Greats: John Stott, 1921-2011
Last month we had a snapshot of Stott’s life. This month we begin with a quote from him when he was interviewed by a TV reporter who asked: “You’ve had a brilliant academic career; first at Cambridge, Rector at twenty-nine, Chaplain to the Queen; what is your ambition now?” Stott replied, “To be more like Jesus.”
Stott went on to say that if we truly see Christ’s glory, we will want to serve him; and if we see his beauty, we will want to imitate him. He longed to see spiritual growth and maturity amongst Christians, arguing that if we want to develop Christian maturity we need a fresh and true vision of Jesus.
Throughout his long life, Stott defended evangelical orthodoxy against a creeping liberalism, which he argued, would damage the church. He loved the Church of England and passionately longed to see spiritual renewal within her and the other churches.
Amongst the 40 books he wrote was “I believe in preaching” (1981). Even then, the ministry of preaching was under attack. Many churches were in serious decline (although not so greatly as now), and some church leaders were arguing that we should ‘modernise worship and make it more attractive so that people will cross the threshold’. [The book, it should be noted, was written against a backdrop of social change, not least the demise of Sunday evening services, blamed by some on television keeping church members at home rather than in church].
Stott refuted any ideas of ‘modernising’ worship, stating that we have a great God and a great gospel which we must declare with passion and authority. Preaching the good news is to be traced back to the bible. Jesus used this means to proclaim the ‘good news’ as did the Old Testament prophets and so, he argued, should the followers of Jesus now. None of this was to underestimate Stott’s belief in the value of testimony alongside preaching in worship. Many people have been converted by hearing testimony. Nor can preaching be effective unless it is lived out in our relations and interactions within our communities.
Stott’s concerns about many things were well founded. His passion for Jesus and the life of faith surely inspires and encourages us.
