- Ampthill Baptist Church
- Dunstable Street
- Ampthill
- Bedfordshire
- MK45 2JS
01525 841682
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News Archive
Past News and Events...
August 2008
Stephen does some real work!
Senior Pastor Stephen Plummer recently spent a day doing some 'proper work' in the Cook's Collection in Ampthill.
Holiday at Home
Our Holiday at Home event for senior citizens happened from 11th-15th August when over 60 people joined us for a week of fun, friendship, food and some trips out. You can view some of the wonderful images from the week at the Holiday at Home Gallery page.
July 2008
Fusion 2008: 28th July - 1st August
As ever Fusion was a huge success with 110 children aged between 6 and 12 years old taking part in this truly manic event, a combined effort between Ampthill Parish Church, Ampthill Methodist Church and Ampthill Baptist Church. Lots of fun was had, lots of mess was made and congratulations to Mercury Team for being the eventual winners.
More Fusion Pictures HERE
Car Wash
On Saturday 12th July, the Swordfish Lighthouse group (and some willing parents), took over the car park at Ampthill Town Football Club and washed people's cars for free. In the space of a couple hours they washed over 20 cars, and the only lull came when the coffee and doughnuts turned up!
The young people wanted to do something for the Hope 08 initiative, which is helping to demonstrate Christian faith in action and to explain the meaning of that faith in villages, towns and cities throughout the UK.
Below are some pictures from the day.
Ampthill Park Work Day
A group of people from the church teamed up with the Greensand Trust and the staff of Ampthill Park recently to help make some tree guards (shown below) to protect the young trees in the park.
June 2008
Baptism
Our latest baptismal service was held on Sunday June 15th. You can see some pictures and find out more about baptism on our Recent Baptisms page.
Rev the Rev
Five local ministers including ABC's very own Stephen Plummer got together recently to record a segment for Fusion 2008. Taking inspiration from Top Gear's Star in a Reasonably Priced Car and It's a Knockout, the five ministers took it in turns to race around an obstacle course on a mobility scooter to see who could clock up the fastest time. The video will be shown as part of Fusion, with a minister's lap featured on each day of the week. The overall winner will remain a closely guarded secret until the last day of the event on Friday 1st August.
Left to right: Adrian Ward (Fusion Organiser), Michael Trodden (Ampthill Parish Church), Nigel Washington (Westoning Parish Church), Father Denis McSweeney (Sacred Heart Church, Flitwick),
Steve Summerfield (Shefford Baptist Church) and Stephen Plummer (ABC)
Fellowship Lunch Barbeque
The sun shined and the sausages sizzled as over 60 people came to the annual Fellowship Lunch Barbeque in Barton-le-Clay on Tuesday 10th June. Every year Associate Pastor Ken Argent and his wife Gill generously allow us to invade their lovely garden and take root for most of the afternoon. Thanks to Ken and Gill for hosting, to everyone who provided food and to John for masterminding the transport.
Online sermons featured in local media
One of our local papers, Bedfordshire on Sunday ran an article about our new online sermons in their edition published on Sunday 1st June. Although we're by no means the first church in the local area to offer this service, we're pleased to be joining the ranks of those who are. We hope that these sermons will be useful to those people who missed a service or to people who are thinking of coming along to Ampthill Baptist Church and would like to get a feel for the style of preaching we have here.
We were also interviewed about them for Chiltern Radio on Tuesday 3rd June.
May 2008
Israel Trip
A group from the church have just returned from a visit to Israel. They visited several of the sites associated with the life and ministry of Jesus, in addition to meeting with a number of Christians across the country.
The group on the balcony of their hotel in Nazareth
Senior Pastor Stephen Plummer with
Pastor Ashraf of Shafamer Baptist Church
The Western Wall in Jerusalem
Fellowship Lunch
Dave Coulson brought his fabulous Honda Goldwing into the church for the Fellowship Lunch on Tuesday 13th May and Associate Pastor Ken Argent hitched a ride on the back.
Dave came to speak about his European travels on his bike, his work with the Bedfordshire Bike Safety Forum, his involvement with the Christian Motorcyclists Association and the work he does fundraising for Dream Flight.
Afterwards, some of the Fellowship Lunch crowd enjoyed themselves trying the bike out!
Fellowship Lunch takes place once a month and everyone is welcome.
Please click HERE for more information.
Pentecost in the Park
The Churches in Ampthill and Flitwick came together on Sunday 11th May to celebrate Pentecost in the Park.
The day of Pentecost was when the gift of the Holy Spirit was given to the disciples, enabling them to do the work that Jesus had left them to do after his crucifixion. The Holy Spirit continues to help Christians today and so what better way to celebrate that by coming together on a glorious day in the surroundings of Ampthill Park.
The celebration was led by various Ministers from the churches in the area and Richard, the Bishop of Bedford gave the main address. There were children's activities going on in addition to a drama presentation from some of the young people. You can read about the event and see more pictures of it at the BBC Three Counties website. Click HERE.
Baptist Union Assembly 2nd - 5th May
Blackpool, Lancashire
At the annual Baptist Union Assembly, our delegates caught up with friends old and new.
Stephen and Carole Plummer (right) met up with former ABC Pastor Peter Goodall and his wife Margaret.
Julie Warner, Mel Herbert and Carole Plummer met
Jonathan Edwards - General Secretary of the Baptist Union (left)
and Alistair Brown - General Director, BMS (right).
Jonathan will be coming to ABC in November to help celebrate our 112th Anniversary.
April 2008
The Alpha Course at ABC concluded with an Alpha Celebration- a fun event where those who have completed the Course are joined by the wider congregation.
The evening featured a Christian illusionist, music and a quiz. All those present enjoyed the fun of the illusions - knowing that the Good News of Jesus is no illusion but the 'real thing'.
March 2008
Registration will open next month for Fusion 2008, a joint annual venture between the Churches in Ampthill - St Andrews Parish Church, The Methodist Church and The Baptist Church. Fusion is a week of fast-moving fun, games, songs, craft, drama and activities with a great Biblical message designed for children aged between 6 and 12 years old.
It runs for 5 mornings during the week of 28th July - 1st August.
If you would like your child to come to Fusion and they didn't attend last year, please contact Rachel Lewis, the Church Administrator, via the Contact Us page and request an invitation - we need your children's names, your address and their dates of birth. The invitations will be despatched during April.
Please note that Fusion is a very popular event, we are always over-subscribed so it is vital that all invitations are returned as soon as possible to have the best chance of attending.
We don't reserve places, it's just the first 100 children to reply.
The Passion
This Easter, starting on Sunday March 16th, the BBC are transmitting The Passion, a retelling of the last week of Jesus's life from three different viewpoints: the religious authorities, the Romans and Jesus himself. The Passion will be shown throughout the week leading up to Easter with the dramatic finale being shown on Easter Sunday, 23rd March. If you have any questions about the programme, there are several agencies that can offer you more information, in addition to coming to talk to us here at Ampthill Baptist Church.
The Christian Enquiry Agency and Re:Jesus have information on their websites or they can send you futher information in the post.
In addition, any of the team here would be happy to sit down with you over a coffee and chat about any questions you have.
Go to Contact Us and get in touch.
Ampthill Baptist Church was featured on the BBC Three Counties Radio 'Melting Pot' programme on Sunday 9th March. Ian Pearce the presenter, visited the church on March 2nd to record the worship and speak to some of the people here.
February 2008
February 10th saw the Induction of Martin Cockerill as the new Associate Pastor for Youth and Local Community at Ampthill Baptist Church. Family, friends and the congregation gathered to celebrate the official start of his ministry in Ampthill.
Martin is originally from Leicester and studied at the London School of Theology where he met his wife Clare. For the last few years they have been living and working in Brighton where Martin worked in the Sports and Leisure Industry. Hearing God’s call for him to move into ministry, Martin answered our advertisement in the Christian press, and after a selection process, the church voted to appoint him as Associate Pastor last autumn. The Cockerill family moved to Ampthill in November. His appointment completes the new Pastoral Leadership team at the Church, with Stephen Plummer as Senior Pastor, supported by Ken Argent, Sally Metianu and Martin Cockerill as Associate Pastors, each focusing on specific aspects of church life.
January 2008
We are running an Alpha Course starting with a launch supper on Saturday 26th January at 7.30pm. Anyone who is interested in finding out more about Christianity is welcome to come along. The course will start on Monday 4th February at 7pm for 10 sessions covering the basics of the Christian faith, more of which you can read about on our Alpha page by clicking on the option to the left.
Our new Associate Pastor for Youth and Local Community Martin Cockerill will be having his Induction Service on Sunday 10th February, to which everyone is invited. This will be followed by a bring and share lunch in the church.
December 2007
We hope you noticed our 'Jesus the Light and Soul of Christmas' posters, we hope this helped you to think about the true meaning of Christmas. We had a joint Carol Service with our friends at the Methodist Church, in addition to welcoming them to Ampthill Baptist Church for Christmas Day. Our Lighthouse children performed their excellent Hosanna Rock! and many people visited the church to take part in the Prayer Journey.
October 2007
Ampthill Baptist Church is very pleased to be welcoming Martin Cockerill to the position of Associate Pastor for Youth and Community. Martin will be joining the Pastoral Leadership team here at ABC in November and will complete our team of Senior Pastor and three Associate Pastors. There will be more news about him soon.
September 2007
Cake and Crafts is a new group at the church for those people who would like to come and either do their craft activity or learn a new skill from others. It takes place on the first Monday afternoon of each month here in the church and everyone is welcome.
August 2007
Ampthill Baptist Church was busy over the summer months with two important events in the church calendar:
Fusion is a joint outreach with the other churches in Ampthill where children aged 6-12 years enjoy a week of fun and finding out about Jesus. This was Fusion's 5th year of organised chaos!
Holiday at Home provided a week of fun, friendship and activities for the more senior members of the community. More than 50 people enjoyed a programme that included crafts, visiting speakers, outings, food and concluded with an afternoons 'Songs of Praise'.
June 2007
ABC has setup a page in MySpace. You can find our MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/ampthillbaptistchurch. It is run by our administrator, Rachel and will contain the most up-to-date information on whats happening in the Church.
May 2007
A big welcome to our new Administrator, Rachel Lewis, who started work on the first of the month. Her job is to support the Leadership team, ensure that everyone knows what they're doing, when they're doing it, where they're doing it and that nothing important gets missed out. If you need to contact her, she will be found hard at work in the Church Office from 9:30am to 12:30pm, Monday to Friday
November 2006
Our local MP, Nadine Dorries, kindly came to our Remembrance Sunday service. See her blog, where she talks about her visit on yet another very busy day. We enjoyed her visit immensely and hope she'll be able to come again.
She is pictured here with our Senior Pastor, Stephen Plummer and two of the younger members of our congregation
September 2006
Members of our congregation, Barbara,Anne and Louisa accompanied our Pastor, Stephen, to London to take part in the Trade Justice march on Thursday 14th September. They joined over 2000 other people from across the country calling for the U.K. government to stop funding the International Monetary Fund and World Bank until they begin to reform unjust practices that further damage the world's poorest communities. Earlier in the day the British government announced that it was withholding £50 million of its funding to the IMF.
Last June, we were visited by a Mystery Worshipper, who attended one of our morning services, leaving their calling card in the collection to let us know we'd been visited. Since then we have been eagerly awaiting the report to appear on the Ship of Fools website. At last, it has appeared and can be read at this page.
June 2006
Ampthill Flower Festival was held at Ampthill Baptist Church over the 16th to 18th June.
It was opened by our Mayor, Penny Foster.
Click here to see some pictures of the flower arrangements.
May 2006
On the 13th,we held"Lazy Saturday", a supper to celebrate the completion of our Alpha course.
November 2005
Members of ABC went to London to lobby their MP, Nadine Dorries, on the subject of Trade Justice.
Pictured is Nadine Dorries with Mid-Beds representatives. As part of the preparation for this day, the members took umbrellas signed by all at ABC to show their solidarity.