We chat to the Revd Tris Peattie, curate at Camp Hill Parish Church, about the reopening of Camp Hill Parish Church and their hopes for the future.
When did the work to reopen Camp Hill Church start and how long did it take?
Camp Hill Parish Church had been closed for nearly three years. It is situated in a great community but a very high area of deprivation. We started gathering a group of people two and a half years ago to pray for the area and seek God with the intention of opening the church. During this time the Church Hall was renovated, we started a Warm Hub on a Wednesday and a food pantry ran each Friday with Feed Coventry. Therefore, by the time we opened on the 13th of October, we had a great team of people, knew the community well and had seen people come to faith in the home group.
What were you praying and hoping for when preparing to reopen?
Our constant prayer has been to build community, to be a city on a hill, a light on a stand, to play our part in reaching and blessing Camp Hil. We pray that the church being here should be good news to residents. Isaiah 61 says: ‘They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.’ We felt the work we were doing to the Church Hall was representative of the new life and restoration work God wants to do in people's lives.
How did the reopening service go?
We had an amazing reopening service with family and friends joining us as well as members of our sending church, All Saints Bedworth. There was a real sense of celebration. It was great to see people who had been part of the old church community join us and really appreciate the new lease of life the church has in the community. Many people came from the food pantry and warm hub. We also met a few people who came because of the reopening signage on the building. We enjoyed fish and chips after the service and we were all left buzzing for day afterwards. It can feel quite insecure and vulnerable when we try anything new, so it was such a blessing and so encouraging for the whole team.
Have there been any particularly inspirational stories of people who have been coming to the church since reopening?
I think baptising two adults in the church was amazing, one lady who came to support one of the candidates was a Holocaust survivor and struggled with religion, but because of the sense of joy in the room she wanted to find a church to go to from then on. We are constantly blown away by what Jesus is doing drawing people to him. One lady came in tears asking for prayer because she had just found out her mum had been diagnosed with cancer. I’m glad people see this as a safe place to come with their pain. There is a lot of pain in the community and God is already at work in everyone's life before we get there, we just try and join in with what He is doing.
What are your plans, prayers and hopes for the future?
We desperately need a Growing Faith families worker as we have lots of children and youth connected to us and wish to see the excellent relationships with our local school develop and grow further. We have a congregation of nearly 60 people gathering each week, and we have run out of space in the Church Hall. It is frustrating as work on restoring the church building is slow and we urgently need more space. The community are excited to be able to worship once again in the church but this seems a long way off still.
Our prayers are to ultimately see transformation in this place, for Camp Hill to be known as a place of hope and for being an amazing community to be part of - which it is. We want to keep hearing clearly from God and keep doing what he says.
This wonderful beginning at Camp Hill has not come easy, we had various problems when we lived in the area - car tyres slashed, threats of violence and our family car was set on fire. Therefore my wife, our four young girls and I had a to move to out to Ansley for our wellbeing. This left us feeling like a failure after moving, wondering if the community would still accept us. I have been so grateful they have. I am so grateful for the amazing team who have supported us and have a heart for Camp Hill and who kept things going while we recovered as a family. We are very excited about the future here and we are grateful for those who went before us in prayer and in church planting to enable this opportunity now.