Heatherside Church, Camberley

Heatherside Church was established in 1977 by a group from St. Paul's Camberley who saw the need for a Christian presence on the estate. When plans for the area were originally made, the intention was to have a community centre and church separately. After some discussion the suggestion was made to combine the two in one building as both parties were there to service the needs of the area. So it was in 1981 that the Heatherside Community Centre and Church was opened.

The church's role is very much intertwined with the community. We still use Heather Ridge School (where we first started meeting in 1977) on a Sunday morning for our childrens work, and we produce a joint publication with the Community Association called Newslink three times a year. There is now a church office in the centre to provide information and support.

The church itself is ecumenical, serving all denominations on the estate, but with an Anglican/Methodist base.

Mission Statement

Ephesians 3:14-21
"To know Christ and to make him known"

(or, to Know and Go)

Vision Statement

Our previous minister, Rev'd Phil Dykes writes:

The Bible is clear about the role of the church - it is God's instrument to transform the world in preparation for Christ's return. It is therefore essential that we all know what it is. To this end churches around the world have been looking into understanding and then compressing the vision for The Church into a form that they can understand for their Church. Understandably, the vision statements they come up with are all very similar and simply re-order the words. The danger for such an exercise is that we spend all our time and effort looking at the theory and not getting on with the practice. The Ecumenical Church Council has looked into the texts and I have summarised the work as follows:

This is based on Ephesians 3:14-21, where Paul is passionate about the church, that they may know the love of God and be strengthened in their faith. The focus is on this verse:

"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love may have power... to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ... filled to the fullness of God".

	High: growing upwards in worship and prayer
	Deep: downwards in faith and maturity, to be rooted and established in love
	Long: outwards in love within the Christian community, in fellowship and service
	Wide: outwards in love and service to the community, in action and witness
	Outwards: to the lost with the gospel

To summarise, we should Know and Go - Know and experience God's love ourselves both individually and in the church community, and then Go, in his name to transform the world. This is born out by the Cross (Know) and Arrow (Go). The idea is that this part of the Vision for the church does not change - it is simply what we do under each of the headings changes as we discern what God is calling us to do and to be.

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