Jobs at Stoneleigh Baptist Church

Overview
At Stoneleigh Baptist Church we value the difference that knowing Jesus through Word and Spirit and belonging to a worshipping, praying, supportive church family makes. We seek to grow in that and to share it with those in our largely middle-class, suburban community. The church has a weekly congregation of 60-80.

Our Local Community
Stoneleigh is a suburb of south-west London with a community feel due to obvious geographical boundaries provided by main roads and the railway. It is 11 miles from the centre of London and many people commute there to work. Within a mile of the church building there are about 9000 residents, two primary schools and a parade of local shops. The population is 80% white British with a variety of other nationalities represented. Although not all of the congregation live within Stoneleigh itself, few travel more than a couple of miles to church. Age ranges in the area are quite mixed with both families and older people. There are fewer people in their 20s due to the high cost of housing and the type of housing available.

Our Church
We are an evangelical church with a mixed worship style. We expect Bible-based, Spirit-inspired preaching from our minister and long for more use of spiritual gifts in our public worship. Our congregation is about 25% 75+ and 40% 65+. Although we have fewer young families worshipping with us than we would like, we have been encouraged to see some new families join us in the last year.
Most people in the fellowship experience good pastoral care, formally and informally, by our pastoral care team and through the small groups in which they are involved. Evening and afternoon home groups encourage Bible study, prayer and mutual support.
We are members of BUGB, LB and EA.

Evangelism and Outreach Serving the Local Community
We are involved in both local primary schools and put on seasonal events: an Easter fun-day, a holiday club, family sessions in the summer holidays, a light party and Christmas events. We run a thriving monthly Messy Church, a weekly Babies & Toddlers group and a small children’s group. We have a weekly café ministry welcoming adults of all ages (and their pre-school children) into a relaxed environment.
Each month we go door-to-door with a Prayer for the Street ministry and at Christmas and Easter we visit the homes closest to us with gifts in addition to leafleting all the homes in the area and partnering with another local church in community outreach.
Friendship evangelism is encouraged and facilitated by the men’s and ladies’ ministries through breakfasts, meals out and other events. We occasionally run Alpha courses.
We have a weekly friendship and ESL teaching session reaching out to those of other nationalities who have been in UK for a number of years as well as those recently arrived.

Challenges
Compared to population statistics for the (varied) borough as a whole we have half as many children (6-13) and half as many 26-40 yr-olds as one would expect. If we were to add in the 50+ young families who would consider SBC as their church because they come regularly to children’s groups / messy church / toddlers then the figures would be very different. These are largely non-Christian families who are nevertheless very committed to attending those aspects of church community life with which they are involved. If we saw a spiritual harvest following the regular seed-sowing into this group, SBC would be transformed!