Earls Hall Baptist Church serves the Westcliff-on-Sea area of Southend-on-Sea. With just under 100 members, but with more folk worshipping on a Sunday, their aim is for Jesus to be at the centre of who they are and what they do. They are keenly aware of the many needs of their local community and invite people to come as they are and to be welcomed and loved for who they are.
The church hosts a large range of activities throughout the week. Alongside their Sunday meetings, they also have Toddlers and Toast, Renew Wellbeing, Warm Welcome –a drop-in café over lunch on Thursdays, host a Trussell Trust food bank distribution centre and Joyful Dancing. Earls Hall are aware their community have different needs, with many still feeling the effects of the pandemic. These activities are a way of responding to these needs, the different places and stages in which people find themselves. Joyful Dancing, for example, was inspired by the verse in Ecclesiastes declaring there is a time for sorrow and a time for dancing and was set up to help people move towards a time of joy.
Others the church reaches and supports includes a group of Iranian asylum seekers who found themselves housed in a local hotel. The church has seen many blessings, including baptisms, through their contact with these families. They have provided a welcome and fellowship, Bible study and worship, and support in a variety of practical ways including home moves and the seemingly endless forms that need to be filled-in.
Earls Hall Baptist Church was founded in 1939 and is currently in another time of change. Over the summer, their minister moved to another church, and they are in Pastoral Vacancy for a full-time minister. Alongside Andy Smith (their associate minister), Ivan King (their moderator) and the Leadership Team, the church is prayerfully looking to their future. In this time, they are seeking to grow and develop, living out their faith daily. Their reminder of this is a picture that resembles a daisy. This shows their desire for Jesus to be at the centre of what they do, that everything they do is surrounded in prayer, with the petals spelling out FAITH showing the areas in which they feel God is calling them to grow.
Please join them in praying:
23rd March 2025
16th March 2025
9th March 2025
