OUR STORY

WHO WE ARE

WELCOME

Welcome to Poynton Baptist Church! PBC is a place for anyone to attend and a family for anybody to be a part of. All are welcome and all are invited, regardless of belief, background, colour, creed, faith, favourite football team or facebook status. Thank you for visiting our site. We hope you can stop by and say hello in person sometime!

We are some very ordinary people who know an extraordinary God! As a result of Him changing our lives in a real way, we now want to share that love and compassion with everyone. We believe that by being both authentic and spiritual, we can make a lasting difference to the world around us. As a Baptist Church, we are part of one of the major church streams in the world and have now been on our site for over 150 years (circa 1867). So we are proud to call Poynton our home, and to carry on serving our community.

VISION

Our vision is that as growing followers of Jesus, we will be able to grow followers of Jesus! Simply put, people who try to live for God in every area of their life. This call to love God and love others is worked out in three main ways:

Pursuing deeper relationship with God

We aim to be a church where people grow deeper in their faith. By getting to grips with the Bible, we want our attitudes and way of life to be more and more like Jesus. By making worship a priority and being enthusiastic about prayer, we will try to create as many opportunities as possible for people to encounter God.

Building authentic community

We want to be a church where people encourage and support one another; a loving environment where people of all ages can feel part of the larger family of God. God calls everyone to play their part in giving their energy and resources to build the church and we try hard to encourage an atmosphere of generosity.

Connecting people with Jesus

Our experience of a relationship with Jesus inspires us to help others know Him for themselves. We want to make a difference and be a positive influence in society, helping demonstrate God's grace and compassion, as well as His desire for justice in the world. We want to be a church that connects people to Jesus Christ.

OUR JOURNEY

Our journey begins back in 1862, where a small group of passionate believers (including PBC's first honorary pastor, George Walker), met in John Potts Saddle Room on London Road South. As attendance started to grow in both the Church and the Sunday School, the time had come where the church needed to get its own building.

In 1866, the land on which our current church building stands, was purchased for £15 and on the 1st September 1867, Poynton's first Baptist Chapel was built costing a grand total of around £300.

Like everyone else, we have had our ups and downs. After 100 years, in 1967, the church was on the very brink of closing. The congregation had dwindled to around twenty, and they met in a crumbling chapel building that had the property developers chomping at the bit. But they were able to resist the calls to give up and sell up, thanks to the support of this village. Despite all of this, the small group of members left in the church continued each and every Sunday to meet, pray and seek God's guidance for the future of the PBC.

One Sunday morning in the November of that year, a man named David Pringle arrived unannounced at the church, expressing how God had spoken to him clearly about being the Pastor here in Poynton. The relentless and faithful prayers of the members had been answered and they unanimously decided to accept David's offer.

By the Christmas of the next year, attendance had risen to over a hundred and thirty people, and the church continues to thrive today.

To find out more about our history, please take a look at our Abundant Harvest booklet.

To find out more about our first Pastor George Walker, please click here.