OUR HISTORY
Discover the history of our church.
Why are we here?
In 1866 Surbiton was a leafy suburb of Greater London. In one of the houses near to the present Church site lived a lady, Jane Woodfall, a Christian who travelled regularly to Central London on the recently opened Railway, to hear Rev Charles Spurgeon preach. She was one of thousands that made that journey regularly.
However, most of the servants had neither the time or the money to get into London to hear the Gospel being preached and God had laid this on Jane’s heart. Local records show that at that time two workman’s cottages with adjoining buildings and land, on the site that is now the Church building in Langley Road, came up for sale. Jane Woodfall bought them and presented them to Spurgeon so that a Baptist Chapel could be built where the ordinary folk could hear the Gospel of salvation in Jesus’ name.
Early Years
In 1873 a Sunday School hall was opened on the ground, followed in 1874 by the opening of Surbiton Hill Baptist Church. This was later renamed Oaklands Baptist Church.
On July 14th 1874 the new church was opened and dedicated to God’s work by Spurgeon himself, with him preaching the first sermon titled ‘By the Grace of God I am what I am’. The church became one of over 150 around London, all of very similar appearance, affectionately called ‘a barn with a roof on’ and built on lands donated to Spurgeon by well to do Christians of similar mind to our Jane Woodfall.
The first pastor was a young man, one of Spurgeon’s students, called William Bastor. He remained in post until the late 1890’s when there was an unfortunate disagreement on doctrine within the membership. Eventually a group broke away and in around 1898 a new ‘strict and particular’ fellowship was formed as Surbiton Baptist Church on Balaclava Road. However, after the initial disagreement, the two churches remained in close contact and over the years joined together in several projects.
20th Century
In the late 1960’s the church began growing under the guidance of God and our then pastor, Richard Higbed. The church had a strong Youth Work, Boy’s and Girl’s Brigades and many young people joined.
In the late 1990s the church at Balaclava Road had become a much smaller fellowship. When the then pastor, Simon Prout was called to another church discussions began between the two churches at Langley and Balaclava Road. Our then pastor, Roger Smith, asked for the two fellowships to come back together. Our brother and deacon Eddie Mooney spent many months and sermons preaching at Balaclava Road, persuading their small membership that our doctrine was now not very different from the ones they held themselves. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit the two fellowships decided to explore an amalgamation under a new name.
Under Eddie Mooney’s guidance and work the two fellowships came together in September 2000 under a rewritten constitution as Baptists Together in Surbiton. We sold the Balaclava Manse providing money to build a purpose designed premises on the rear of the Langley Road site and eventually to refurbish and repurpose the worship area at Balaclava Road.
There followed a long period of pastoral vacancy during which God spoke to us as a fellowship about ‘doing something different’. We then called Adam Stacey, a young man with some different ideas on outreach, on use of premises and with an interest in using football as an outreach. In 2010 the new church was constituted under the name Surbiton New Life Baptist Church.
Baptists Together in Surbiton
In 2012 Adam left us to head up a Christian young people’s and family support work in Aldershot called the Source. At this time, we were not sure if we could afford the services of a full-time pastor. God again provided in that, one of our deacons, Rev Jacky Bone, was a part time chaplain at the local YMCA. Jacky was an ordained Minister under the then London Bible College and became our part-time Minister, continuing the outreach work Adam had started with her help at the Well, a Sunday afternoon Café-church and help to those in need.
Jacky left us in late summer of 2018 to take up a pioneering ministry in Witney in Oxfordshire. We welcomed Rev Richard Asante and family in September 2018 as our present Minister.
Our Beliefs and Vision
Now that you’ve heard about our history as a church, how about discovering more about what we believe?