Our vision for West Cheltenham is to see “communities and places buzzing with the extraordinary presence of Jesus”

 

Our History

West Cheltenham parish was created in 2018 by the joining together of three church communities that had worked together for many years, but who wanted to do something bigger that could really make a meaningful difference to the people who connect with West Cheltenham.

We launched our vision in April 2019, and we love it, because it reminds us that Jesus can transform every situation, and that most of that happens outside of our church buildings and throughout the week.

To realise our vision we identified four priorities for particular attention:

  • Prayer

  • Small groups

  • Mission and Outreach

  • Communications and Operations

The on-going story

Since then we have made significant progress on those priorities and have revised the list for increased focus in certain areas. Our small groups were reviewed and reinvigorated, helping us to grow deeper in discipleship and closer together as we support each other through the week. Communications and operations benefitted from the appointment of an Operations Manager in 2019 helping us share and collaborate more easily.

Prayer remains a priority so that it becomes woven through our corporate and individual identities.

The focus for mission and outreach has become centred at the moment on two physical projects:

  • the re-ordering of St Mark’s church building so that it can be used for greater community engagement

  • the development of the old St Aidan’s Garden to serve the community and to become a place of encounter with God

An additional priority has been identified as Youth and Children’s Ministry, to nurture resilient discipleship amongst the young people of our church family and to reach out with the good news of Jesus into the community, in particular through our relationship with All Saints Academy.

What next?

Prayer will remain a priority as it underpins all that we are as God’s co-workers in this part of Cheltenham. We will seek to develop a rhythm of prayer through the week to fuel our ministry and mission.

We are excited for the future as the physical projects at St Mark’s and St Aidan’s are completed and we can begin to develop missional activities from these centres to reach out across the Parish.

We have worked in partnership with The Rock to develop the youth ministry in the parish and have recently appointed a youth worker in partnership with All Saints Academy to start in September 2026 who can continue and build on these foundations.

We continue to hold onto the vision of seeing “communities and places buzzing with the extraordinary presence of Jesus”.