Our church building is almost exactly opposite the Parkwood Road turning off Christchurch Road, if that helps you to picture where we are!
We are a ten-minute walk from the Boscanova end of the pedestrian area of Boscombe and a five-minute walk from Pokesdown Station. We don’t have our own car park so if you come by car, you’ll need to find parking. It’s usually possible to find a space in the streets behind the church to the north or leading off Parkwood Road to the south. We are on the main bus route along Christchurch Road, including More Buses 1, 1a, 1b, 2, and m2, with Parkwood Road stops, east-bound and west-bound, nearby.
When you arrive you will be met at the door to the entrance foyer by one of our greeters. Wheelchair access is via a door on the left side of the building. If you come in a wheelchair, one of the welcomers will open the side door for you.
There is a disabled access toilet (and baby changing facilities) towards the front of the main church on the left side. This is in addition to a ladies’ toilet and a men’s toilet in the entrance foyer, and another toilet in the adjoining hall.
Hand gel is available in the church. A few members of the congregation continue to wear face coverings but very few continue to observe social distancing or avoid shaking hands.
You will be given an ‘Order of Service’ which is a handout listing what part of the service is happening when, what songs we will be singing, and what Bible verses we will be looking at. Here is an example:
We currently have about 25 to 35 adults attend, and a small number of children. Some people dress smart-casual, others casual – come as you are!
The service starts with an opening prayer and is followed by about twenty minutes of praise and worship (singing). We sing a mix of traditional hymns and more contemporary praise and worship songs to the accompaniment of an organ, keyboard, or guitar. Song words are displayed on a large screen.
On the first Sunday of each month we take Holy Communion, which is where Christians eat a small piece of bread and drink a tiny glass of red grape juice (standing in for wine) as a symbolic and blessed reminder of Christ’s body given for us and Christ’s blood poured out for us. You can read more about this in the Bible, book of Luke, chapter 22, verses 14 to 20.
Children can attend ‘Sunday Fun’ in the adjoining hall or remain in the main church hall where we have some children’s books, colouring books and simple play items. All our children’s workers are DBS checked and have passed their safeguarding training.
Usually the Minister, Simon, gives a sermon, but sometimes it is one of the other church members or a guest speaker. The sermon is about 25 minutes long.
The whole service lasts about an hour. Afterwards, we hope you can stay to join us for teas and coffees, and a chat, in the adjoining hall.
Typically about 15 adults attend this service. It is more informal than the morning service and we have almost entirely contemporary praise and worship songs, rather than hymns, and they are accompanied on the guitar.
As it is a smaller congregation, the talk is usually in a more interactive format. Simon may ask questions and members of the congregation often ask questions which Simon can’t answer.
This service is also about an hour long, sometimes slightly less.
After this service we also have tea, coffee and other refreshments – and in the afternoon service we usually have real coffee!
Here is an example of an Order of Service:
In some of our 4pm service on Sundays we will be showing ‘Alpha’ videos, about aspects of the Christian faith, which are about 25 minutes long, followed by time to discuss and ask questions in small groups. These sessions are due on Sundays in 2023: 16 April; 14 May; 11 June; 9 July; 13 August. Read more about our ‘Alpha’.
You can find us along the Christchurch Road, half way between the Cafe Boscanova end of the Boscombe pedestrian area, and Pokesdown Station.
Sign at the top of Parkwood Road, almost exactly opposite the church.
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. Also online.
What’s the task of a church? The church is a group of people who have made
Jesus Lord. So they present themselves
for service. What does Jesus want to
do?
He wants people to accept him as their rightful Lord and King.
He wants people to grow to be like him. After all, God created us in his image!
He wants people to show compassion to others. The world is full of hurting people.
He wants people to fight for justice, to oppose the oppressor.
He wants people to take care of the wonderful world he has entrusted to us.
As a church we don’t do all of these things. But they are aspirations.
Rosebery Park Baptist Church, 812-814 Christchurch Road, between Boscombe and Pokesdown, Bournemouth, BH7 6DF. Also online.
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.
