Home » Weekly Church Prayer Focuses » Cottenham Baptist Church

Weekly Prayer Focus: Cottenham Baptist Church

Week 28

Cottenham is a large village six miles north of Cambridge. It’s a growing village with a number of new developments as well as a large primary school, village college and an SEMH special school. Cottenham Baptist Church has sat in the heart of the village for over 170 years.

For the past fifteen years the church has been led by minister Kate Lees alongside a leadership team of Elders and Deacons. The church is a diverse community that sees 40-50 people meeting each week from different ages, backgrounds and nationalities. Their aim is to seek to be a church family who welcome all people and to meet them where they are at.

In recent years this has often been achieved through the ‘Real Christmas Grotto’, Halloween refresh-ments, once a month Thursday Hub coffee morning, Brunch services, Foodbank and a Holiday Club.

During lockdown the church took the opportunity to work with others in the village to set up a community allotment. The aim was to provide a space for those who wanted to meet others and enjoyed planting and harvesting produce. This has grown to now cover three plots which house a large polytunnel, raised bed planting for families and a shelter to gather for refreshments. Food that is grown is shared out between those who volunteer and also donated to the local coffee shop and Foodbank where needed.

Due to work and home commitments of many in the church family, running regular midweek church events has become difficult. The church has found that the best way to engage with its community is to run fewer activities and instead encourage one another to get involved in other village activities, as well as seeking opportunities to share God’s love in the places they find themselves each day.

Please pray for:

Look to live as children of God in our everyday settings and seek to encourage each other to do this.
Continue to seek ways of connecting with the village, especially the schools, which has been difficult since the recent lockdowns.
Seek to develop our church building to reflect who we are and make it more accessible and welcoming to the community.
Think about ways in which we can be a more welcoming church to all people, especially those who have been rejected or hurt by church communities in the past.