photo of a group of people

Our Vision

Winchester Baptist Church has had a clear statement of Purpose for some years, now. We want to be 'a church without walls'- and we are:
Building a community, empowered by the Holy Spirit, bringing

  • glory to God
  • people to Jesus
  • believers to maturity
  • God to the world

We are also a church with a vision for God doing something remarkable in Winchester through churches working together for the Kingdom (rather than their little empires). We have a vision for churches ceasing competing, stopping replicating and sharing resources and distinctives- for the greater good of God's Kingdom. Some of this is happening already.

Since January 2007 we have been seeking God for stepping stones for our future and vision and a number of things have become clear. The following items might help you understand our process:

  • listen to the recording from our Feb 07 vision service (of 11th Feb 07am) entitled "Testimonies and resonances with our vison" on our MP3 page
  • read a final summary of the main vision values and ideas that came out of January and February 07
  • read our initial thoughts about what 'Clusters' are and their genetic code
  • read the ideas and values that people started clustering around in June


In simple summary- we are moving to being a church that empowers individuals to 'go and DO it... BE it' a whole lot more. Our thoughts are that:

  • our vision and future starts with 'me' not 'we'
  • we are seeking to empower individuals to 'cluster' around those projects they believe their heart and God's Spirit are in. Clusters are 'communities with a cause'. Got a vision that is broadlly in line with our Cluster values and genetic code? Come and share it and let's see if the Lord's in it and takes it on
  • time, the Lord's leading, whether a 'Champion' and team arises for these concepts... and a process of godly 'natural selection' will dictate which Clusters live and which die. Hence we need to 'build with scaffolding' not 'concrete' and be open to God's leading


We have already found the Lord has lead us forward. It has been surprising and exciting. We are currently looking into:

  • the whole area of Clustering. The Leadership Team are championing this as it is so key to our identity
  • our women's work (Champion: Janet Jones)
  • our men's work (Champion: Paul Breakwell)
  • a debt project (for which a cluster is already meeting regularly, and we are in the earliest discussions with some other city churches)
  • a recording Studio (Champion: Adrian Whyte). The studio is now working and Adrian will be getting a date with musicians in Jan 08
  • mentoring 1:1 across the ages (Champion Dr Jim McAulay)
  • making our premises suit our purpose and persona (Champion: Gordon Lockhart) Read the latest update. Come and cluster around this after the morning service of 13th Jan, 5pm before pm service of 27th Jan or at 8pm on Tue 29th Jan. All in the Tweedly Room

  • our vision for mission: we want to send at least one team each year to one of our Missionaries and have an excellent Champion for each Misssionary. This is already happening with the Bassons. We also have a team booked to visit two of our other missionaries in '08 and we have early plans to send a team to DR Congo to visit the Lusis in '09. It's already happening and it's changing the heart of our church!
  • children: Andy, Kirsty, Ali and our COGS leaders are looking into this.
  • marriage: we have a group looking into this (no Champion, yet)
  • parenting: some form of a parenting course (Champion: TBC)
  • "Fresh Expressions" of Church: our Leadership Team are starting to look into further new ways of doing church. We are aware that there will need to be 'new wineskins' to contain the way God wants us to do church in the future. (Champions: Tim and Ewen)

.... and of course we already have our two 'fresh expressions': our burgeoning work with Older Folks (Silver service) with Liz Stacey as its Champion and our hugely blessed Youth Congregation (The Edge) with Tim Williamson championing that.

Visit this page and come to our Church Members' Meetings for the latest news. Be part of our vision to be 'a church without walls'.