Frequently Asked Questions

Stechford in Winter

Are you part of the 'emergent' church movement?
We're not really part of any movement. Stechford is an urban-deprived area a few miles from the nearest university campus. It isn't full of people agonising about whether or not their thinking is post-modern, and if the church concentrates too much on meta-narratives. Many of the people here are just trying to get by, the best way they can. That said, any church which spends a lot of time making sense to people from non-church backgrounds is going to share some characteristics with the Emergent Church movement. So our Bible Studies may at times seem like the study described by the emergent church movement. On the other hand, we have never been part of the 'stifling evangelical orthodoxy' that the emergent church movement is trying to escape.

What's your position on the post-evangelical movement?

We're not really sure what post-evangelicalism is offering. That is to say, we don't really fit into the 'evangelicalism' that post-evangelicals are trying to get away from. The idea was coined by David Tomlinson in his 1995 book "The Post-Evangelical". Tomlinson was concerned by what he saw as the stifling, middle-class, narrow-mindedness of evangelicalism, with its focus on the nuclear family of parents and children, and a lack of concern for poverty and social justice. He is also troubled by the claims of inerrancy for the Bible.

We have to say — we don't recognise the kind of church he talks about (although we still believe that the Bible does not contain errors). Stechford Baptist is a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic church in an urban deprived working class area, politically involved, running community projects, and with a mixture of couples, families, singles, unmarried parents, divorcees, widows and widowers, and most other combinations. We see evangelicalism as i) a commitment to God's Word, ii) personal faith in Christ, and iii) a desire to communicate the Good News about Jesus. And we're not ashamed to be evangelical.

By evangelical, do you mean anti-charismatic?
We are evangelical in the sense that we believe the whole Bible to be God-breathed. We're not part of any of a number of movements which have labeled themselves 'evangelical' or been called that by other people. We believe in the truth of all of Scripture — including the parts about spiritual gifts, miracles, loud and lively worship and the spontaneous outpouring of the soul.

What's the name of your pastor?
Like many small Baptist churches, we don't currently have a paid pastor. We have a team-leadership of deacons and other established believers.

Do you work with other churches?
We have particular relationships with the other churches in Stechford and Yardley. In Stechford this is All Saints Anglican Church and Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Church. In Yardley there are a number of Anglican churches, one other Baptist, methodists and a United Reformed Church we work with.

Are you Calvinist or Arminian?
We don't really see ourselves as fitting into this debate. Our approach to Scipture is exploratory, expository, and practical. In other words, we take the passages as they come, try to understand what they were intended to mean to their original audiences, and try to discover what practical application there are for our daily ilves.

Are you anti-intellectual?
No. Our members include people from all walks of life, including people from the fields of medicine, engineering, geology, music, literature, theology, and linguistics, as well as people who have been effective and godly believers without any qualifications or academic background at all.

Wouldn't people be better off going to a large, city-centre church?
We believe in small, local churches. We know that large churches can offer more facilities for their members, and that there's a particular excitement about worshipping in a large group. But small churches offer more ministry opportunities for every member. There's also a particular reality about worshipping with people that you know and are learning to love. A large church can spend more on its building, its programmes and its equipment. But everything it does has less direct relevance to each individual person.

Of course, we would love to be a church with a large, local congregation. But we don't believe that a large, city-centre church where people worship at a distance from the community they live in is a substitute. Ultimately, we were never called to consumers in God's kingdom.

What's your position on creation and evolution?
We really believe that what the Bible says is true. But that doesn't mean that we believe that biologists and geologists are trying to pull the wool over people's eyes. And, although we believe that the Bible is true, this doesn't mean that we believe that our current understanding of it is necessarily the right one.

Ultimately — echoing the words of Francis Schaeffer — we believe that there is no final conflict between science and the Bible. Looked at from outside the Western cultural perspective, there is very little difference between the progressive Big Bang - coalescence of the universe - simple life forms - advanced life forms - man narrative of astrophysics and biology and the light - separation of astrophysical bodies - seas - plants - animals - man narrative of Genesis 1. In fact, non-Western, non-Judaeo-Christian critics might reasonably argue that evolution is just a secularised version of Genesis, and is merely a reflection of the underlying cultural themes that still dominate European and American thought.

Is your church politically right-wing?
Stechford Baptist is non-political. We don't see a connection between Biblical faith and any particular political party. Church members include activists and former activists in the Liberal-Democrat party, the Labour party and the Conservative party, as well as people who have never linked themselves to any party. We don't encourage our members to vote any particular way at elections, but we do encourage them to vote, and we support local Churches Together debates where different candidates answer questions on the issues of the day.

When you say multi-cultural, what do you mean?
Since the 1970s, Stechford Baptist has actively worked to bring people from different cultures together. At one time recently our members included people from four continents, with simultaneous translation in the service into French. Our leadership team has been multi-ethnic for more than fifteen years.

This page collects together some of the frequently asked questions about Stechford Baptist Church.

If you live in Stechford, most of these questions won't bother you — the easiest thing to do is to come along and see what we're like.

On the other hand, if you've found us on the internet and are trying to place us in the context of other Christian movements or groups, this page might help you.

Stechford Baptist Church • Victoria Road • Stechford • Birmingham B33 8AH. Map. Stechford is in the Stechford and Yardley North Ward, and is close to Hodge Hill.