Birchwood Community Church

It's been a very busy time for all of us here at Birchwood Community Church recently. In the background there's been loads of exciting stuff going on as we move from a comfortable community in the Church to become a Church in our community. We're a work in progress.

We've changed our name to something people can understand. We've moved out of the High School, across the shopping centre and into Spencer House, and every Saturday (and quite a few days and evenings as well) you'll find loads of people, busy at work clearing, cleaning, scraping, sanding, preparing and painting in what used to be a pub and a couple of empty shops.

So what's going on? Well if you saw The Warrington Guardian on the 22/1 (you can find the link in the 'news' section), you may have noticed an article about us applying for planning permission to turn these premises into a Church. A Church with the community at it's heart. That's why we're down there working away. And it's FUN!!!

When you're working together you get to know one another a bit better, find out more about the person behind the name, see people in a different way. The calm professional doctor looks different with a blob of white gloss on her nose; the surgeon - well he may turn up in scruffs that are better than I go to Church in on Sunday, but he really gets stuck in; the tecchies might stand around looking at a coil of wire for half an hour, but eventually they wire up a network that a cable company would be proud of; the teenagers - they painted each other; the bio-chemist set a whole new trend by wearing her dust mask on top of her head; mums multi-tasked; dads drank tea; children contributed to everything. All of them ordinary local people doing something extraordinary and having a great time doing it. I've been to parties that had less atmosphere!

Funny isn't it? Get rid of the titles, the job descriptions, the labels and you start to discover the real person with all their gifts, problems, feelings ...and sense of humour; you build friendships, relationships, based on shared experiences, 'we're in this together'. You're welcome to jump in!

Behind all of this is an amazing God at work - right here and right now - but that's another story.

So, Praise the Lord - and pass the paint brush - there's fun to be had.