Bethel Christian Fellowship

History

In the early years of the twentieth century there was a great religious awakening, now known as the Pentecostal Revival, which followed the Welsh Revival beginning in 1904. There was an emphasis on the baptism in the Holy Spirit and the recovery of the Gifts of the Spirit. As a result of that move of God new groupings of churches were formed. Assemblies of God was one of them. It was formed with 60 churches in 1924, but now numbers around 600 throughout Great Britain and Ireland. Bethel Christian Fellowship (BCF) is one of them.

Assemblies of God in Great Britain and Ireland is a member of the Evangelical Alliance, as is BCF and some of our individual members.

The Pentecostal Church in Witham dates back to early 1928, when meetings began to be held on Sunday evenings in a YMCA hut opposite the present Labour Hall in Collingwood Road. The meetings moved after a while to a former British Legion hut in Mill Lane. The Bethel building in Church Street was built during the Second World War. Sunday morning meetings were moved to Powers Hall Junior School in 1992 and then, with a short spell at Spring Lodge Community Centre, to The Maltings Academy in February, 2006. The Bethel building is, however, still in use for smaller group meetings and other church activities as well as for a pre-school playgroup.  In 2009 the fellowship opened a coffee shop called The Well in Guithavon Street.