St John’s Wood is west of Regent’s Park in London, a neighbourhood made famous by Lords Cricket Ground. The Edgware Road is also a centre for London’s Arab population.
At the heart of this community is St John’s Wood Road Baptist Church, a Grace Baptist church that has served this area for well over a century. In 2005 it had fallen on hard times, but Chris and Helen Hawthorne came to revitalise it, gathering a growing community around God’s word. During their time they sent a member to church-plant in Bordeaux, and another returned to serve in Assam, India. Finally, in 2018 the church sent Chris and Helen through GBM to head up Proclamation Institute Zambia, leaving Scott Little as the new pastor.
The church is very multicultural, and there are new visitors almost every week, many of them unsaved. This shapes the whole approach to Sunday worship. Scott says: ‘As a multicultural church, things may progress slower ecclesiologically, but we are focussed on growing an “Ephesus-model” of church rather than a homogeneous one. In our preaching we try to use language that is accessible and clear, and complement this with PowerPoint images to aid those with a weak grasp of English.’
