Grace Baptist Chapel, Tottenham, sits in the middle of a dense tangle of London streets, a mile south west of White Hart Lane. Gavin Childress (see photo) has been the pastor since 1987, and the church now includes people from 11 different nations.
The effects of Covid have been felt strongly in Tottenham. ‘One lady who attends our church lost three people she knew well; a mother, father and daughter all died.’
From early summer 2020, the church met in the local park for the Lord’s Supper on a Sunday evening, and resumed meeting in the church building as soon as they could.
Gavin had been invited into a local primary school in 2019 to take assemblies, but when parents objected to Christian content in a secular school, they threatened to go to the press and the school pulled the plug. But Gavin was then invited to take assemblies at the school’s other site; then lockdown came. Gavin and his son recorded videos for online school assemblies, and these were received so well that they were shared across both school sites, to the dismay of some parents!
The pandemic has served to strengthen the spiritual life of the church. In March this year they baptised two people and have added others to their membership as well.
How will the church respond to the easing of lockdown? Gavin says: ‘We will have to make a decision on pulling the plug on livestreaming, otherwise there will be a whole group of people who never return to us. John says in 2 John:12 “Though I have much to write to you … Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face…”. We need to recapture a bit of that.’
