Rosebery Park is a member of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and part of the ‘Southern Counties’ Baptist Association. The church also has a close link with Moorlands College and this academic year three Moorlands students will be helping Rosebery Park as their placements.
RPBC works closely with Baptist churches in the Bournemouth area and with churches of most denominations through Churches Together in Boscombe (CTIB). Some of our members are involved with ‘Open the Book’ which does Bible dramas in primary schools. You can listen to a twelve minute interview about the ‘Open the Book’ in Pokesdown from Priscilla Bartlett’s ‘Challenges’ show on Hope FM, 13/12/2021:
The Christian churches and denominations signing below affirm their calling to worship God, to share the Good News of Jesus Christ, to acknowledge the leading of the Holy Spirit and to work for the good of all people, especially those in the neighbourhood of Boscombe.
The aims of Churches Together in Boscombe are:
To enable the churches, as pilgrims together, to explore the Christian faith, to develop mutual relationships, to seek a common mind, and to make decisions together.
To encourage churches to worship, pray and reflect together on the nature and purpose of the Church in the light of its mission – each church sharing with others the treasures of its traditions.
To enable the churches to respond to the current needs of society and to witness to the messages of the gospel together.
We therefore commit ourselves:
To worship together, when invited, and according to the traditions of the church, in every member church.
To make public witness to our faith at least once every year.
To remain open and ready to cooperate in united activity and outreach, as the Spirit of God may lead us.
To pray for one another in separate as well as in united activities.
To maintain a committee of representatives from each church to meet regularly.
To encourage and support initiatives serving the well-being of the local community.
We covenant to share our life as Christians as fully as we can, and at the same time acknowledge that this covenant does not weaken our ties and responsibilities to our individual churches, and to review this commitment five years from 24 June 2021.
Rosebery Park Baptist Church, 812-814 Christchurch Road, between Boscombe and Pokesdown, Bournemouth, BH7 6DF
Every member of the church is
important and every member of the church is helping with the running of the
church and its various ministries. It
would be impossible to mention everyone or everything they do and they would
probably not want to be mentioned. The
minister is not more important than anyone else.
Simon Bartlett became the minister of Rosebery Park in September 2019. It’s his first time of being a minister, so he’s sure to make mistakes! Before this he worked as an engineer on power stations and then spent 17 years working in Azerbaijan. Simon is married to Priscilla, who is from Sri Lanka. They have two children, both now at university.
SAFEGUARDING: Rosebery Park has policies in place to ensure compliance with legal requirements such as safeguarding. All church members working with children have had safeguarding training and are DBS checked.
Rosebery Park Baptist Church, 812-814 Christchurch Road, between Boscombe and Pokesdown, Bournemouth, BH7 6DF
What kind of Christians are
we?
Followers of Jesus Christ are often called Christians, and there are lots of different groups of Christians. Where do we fit in? How is our belief different from other Christians’ belief? For a long time there was just one church. In 1054 that split apart, forming the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church. About 500 years a group split from the Catholic Church: Protestants.
As you may guess from the name, they were protesting. One of the Protestants’ main ideas was that everyone has the right to decide for themselves what they believe about God, based on how they understood the Bible, rather than the church deciding what right belief is.
It wasn’t much later that
Baptists came into being – around 1609.
So Baptists have been around for more than 400 years and, as you may
guess, there are varieties of Baptists!
Rosebery Park is a member of the largest group of Baptist Churches in
Britain – the Baptist Union of Great Britain.
One thing Baptists believe very strongly is that people should be
baptised to show that they have made a commitment to follow Jesus. We’re not very keen on a little sprinkling
of water on the forehead. When we use
the word ‘baptised’ we mean, going underwater!
It’s a very special ceremony.
The Bible
But we can’t quite finish
identifying ourselves here. Over about
the last 200 years there have been many attacks on the Bible. Partly because of these attacks many
Christians don’t believe the Bible is entirely true. As a result some Christian leaders divide
Christians up a different way, not into Orthodox and Catholics and Protestants,
for example, but into those who believe the Bible is true and those who
don’t.
The position of the leaders of Rosebery Park Baptist Church is that the
Bible is true. We’re aware that this can
be a difficult position. What do we make
of stories like Noah and the flood, for example? But we don’t see any compelling reason not to
believe the Bible is true and many reasons to believe that it is.
Beliefs
The Basis of the Baptist Union,
which Rosebery Park agrees with, is stated in a Declaration of Principle
as follows:
Text version for accessibility:
That our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, is the sole and absolute authority in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and that each Church has liberty, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to interpret and administer His laws.
That Christian Baptism is the immersion in water into the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, of those who have professed repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ who ‘died for our sins according to the Scriptures; was buried, and rose again the third day’.
That it is the duty of every disciple to bear personal witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to take part in the evangelisation of the world.
What is a Christian anyway?
Perhaps the simplest answer is, ‘someone who knows God’. The Bible teaches that we can actually know God through Jesus! Jesus addressed God as ‘Abba, father’. ‘Abba’ is a very intimate term. Later in the Bible one of the early leaders of the church, Paul, said that we also address God this way: “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba Father!’” Just as a good human father knows us and we know him, we can know God as ‘father’. We can have a relationship of love, understanding, respect and trust with God! To enter into this relationship we have to repent of sin in our lives and commit to Jesus being Lord. Or we could say, the gaffer! We commit to listening to him, and what he says goes.
Rosebery Park Baptist Church, 812-814 Christchurch Road, between Boscombe and Pokesdown, Bournemouth, BH7 6DF. Also online.
812-814 Christchurch Road, between Boscombe and Pokesdown, Bournemouth, BH7 6DF
Rosebery Park Baptist Church is a community of people who are seeking to follow Jesus Christ. We’re a community, not a building. Admittedly, on the front of our building, in Christchurch Road, Pokesdown, are the words ‘Rosebery Park Baptist Church’. But the building isn’t the church. We – the people – are the church. (Photo: Rev. Simon Bartlett & Priscilla Bartlett)
We’re the church on Monday as well as on Sunday, and we would be the church if we had no building. We’re quite a mix: young and old, different nationalities and different backgrounds. We’re trying to follow Jesus but none of us is perfect. We have specific beliefs about who Jesus is. Our beliefs are expressed in a formal statement by the Baptist Union of Great Britain. But a very brief expression of our beliefs could be, ‘JESUS: LORD. LOVE. LIFE. HOPE’. (Photo: Coffee Morning)
We could describe the few hundred metres between the church and Pokesdown Station as the Portobello Road of Bournemouth. There’s a concentration of antique shops selling everything from bric-a-brac to high-class antiques, and a great selection of bakeries, cafés and restaurants. But good as all this is, we hope that at Rosebery Park you will find something of even greater value! (Photo: Church building)
