This section briefly describes the history of Crestwood Church, from an idea, to a church plant and finally into an independent church.

The Vision

The vision to plant a new church was conceived in the eldership of Wall Heath Evangelical Church (WHEFC) back in Christmas 1996.

One of the main needs to progress in this new venture was to employ a second worker to assist WHEFC in youth work and evangelism. To prepare the church for the mighty tasks ahead. WHEFC at this stage was a church of around 70 people.

The Early Days

In September 2003 Andy Hodson was employed for 15 hours to look into the project of church planting on the Crestwood estate and to work with the youth at WHEFC.

Already a youth work or Crusaders groups (now Urban Saints) was established on the estate with helpers from WHEFC and others churches and a small amount of door to door visitation had commenced, normally a couple of hours a month.

In October 2003 a team which included Alan Dodd, Andy Hodson, Janet Shackleton and Matt Coloumbe from Canada set out to carry out a questionnaire of the 1000 or so homes on the estate.

The questionnaire asked simple questions like:

• What are your main needs?
• Do you believe in God?
• Do you pray?
• Who is Jesus to you?

After a few months repeat visits were made and several people were very keen for a church to be planted on the estate. One of the main needs was somewhere for the seniors to go and by April 04 Crestwood break was formed, meeting at the Crestwood Pub.

How the work developed

The Crestwood Festival

One of the major steps of the birth of the church was the vision to have a 'Festival' type event on the estate.

This would involve erecting a marquee and putting on various events over a ten day period.

The events included:

• A Summer Fete
• Church Services
• Special interest meetings
• A bible exhibition
• Outer Space Holiday Club
• Several youth activates including a band (YFriday)
• A coffee shop
• A juggling workshop
• It's a knock-out and other family fun activities.

This event brought many problems and God responded with mighty answers to our prayers. Over the course of 10 days over 500 people had attended at least one event. Many links had been made with the community and most importantly a link had been made with the Crestwood School (Secondary School). The festival cost the church nearly £10,000 and was a big step of faith for a relatively small church.

From here a youth ministry developed on Tuesday nights. We would mark out a football pitch and set up goals and play an organised game of football, this proved to be very popular with the young people, sometimes over 100 youth would play, sit and watch giving us an opportunity to share the gospel.

The First Sunday Service

During September 2004 we started looking for a location for the Church to hold its services but all the buildings were unavailable to us. Finally, after prayer in November 04 Crestwood Secondary School, on Bromley Lane, offered us the use of their library.

A date was fixed to have our first service on 12th December 2004 at 10:30am so the area was again leafleted as we prayed...

On the 12th December we had our first service in the form of a Carol Service, and 9 adults and two children from the estate attended - we were delighted and very thankful! This was a major step for us, we only wanted 15-20 people to start a church and already with the church plant team we were on schedule!

It was decided that we were to run services every other week and over the following 6 months over 50 people attended at least one of our services. By June 2005 we were averaging a congregation of 40!

Alpha Course

The next step was to put on a course where we could introduce people to the Christian faith and this was done in the form of an Alpha Course. We held the course in the Fox and Goose pub and over 15 people attended. Many of the group made commitments and others rededications

The Church Grows

The church plant continued to grow, we started new youth groups, held baptism services at Wall Heath Evangelical Church and by April 2006 we were in a position financially and constitutionally to go independent.

On Saturday 8th April 2006 we held our Independence service at The Briers School, Bromley Hills.