Introduction

Corsham Baptist Church is a local church made up of people with a broad range of ages and backgrounds just like the town in which we live. Building on the long tradition of valuing and teaching the Word of God, the vital theme of 'gospel expansion' has, in recent years, become our focus.

We're looking for a Associate Pastor who:

• Will join our pastoral team, with responsibilities for leading our church plant, and encouraging it and the wider church into evangelism.
• Is wholeheartedly committed to exercising a Word-shaped, gospel-centred pastoral ministry under the authority of Jesus Christ.
• Is wholeheartedly committed to interpreting scripture faithfully and passing it on clearly through teaching and preaching.
• Eagerly desires to see all of God's people grow through ongoing discipleship, mission, and local evangelism. Having grown in our involvement in global mission over the past decade, we have identified evangelism as an area in which we are keen to grow as a church., and so experience in evangelism, and a heart to lead by example, and to equip us to do this work together as a church would be a big positive.
• Who has a desire to be part of the CBC pastoral team with the aim of raising up, equipping and training new ministry workers and leaders in the church to share the joy and burden of ministry work.
• Who has the necessary skills and character to share in the pastoral care for our congregations.
• Has a generous, grace-filled heart, expressed in a genuine love for people, and a desire to see the church reflecting more and more of the love of Christ in our life together.

Our desire is that in 10 years time CBC:

• Will still be preaching the same Gospel of Jesus Christ, though we are open to new ways of doing so in order to reach those around us under the guidance of the Holy Spirit;
• Will be growing new disciples and seeing spiritual growth in existing ones;
• Will be actively engaged in the new estates that are enlarging Corsham but have no church provision at the moment;
• Will continue to be actively involved in partnering with local churches, not least through the South West Gospel Partnership and Webnet; and
• Will be continuing to play its part in supporting world-wide mission.

About Corsham

Corsham is an historic market town in north-west Wiltshire. It is at the south-western extreme of the Cotswolds, just off the M4 between Bath and Chippenham. With a population of 13,000, the unemployment level in Corsham is well below the national average. The MOD and Services are the main employers in the area, with other employment coming from rural industries and people commuting to Bath, Bristol and Swindon. Corsham acts as a focal point for the North Wiltshire community with a secondary school and four junior schools.

Four congregations

In recent years the town of Corsham has undergone significant growth, largely to the west of the original town. This includes new housing developments and a revised parish boundary both of which serve to draw Rudloe (a previously separate locality) into closer orbit. In response to this, CBC planted a second congregation in Rudloe in 2015, and seven years on it is well established though remains small. We are keen to invest in this congregation and see it continue to grow both numerically and in depth of discipleship as it reaches out to the local community of Rudloe. At present the congregation holds its Sunday meetings in a community centre owned by the Ministry of Defence. There is some room for growth in this location, though not a lot, and so one challenge facing the congregation is to find larger accommodation to give space for continued growth.

The 'mother' Church has two Sunday congregations gathering in our Priory Street building at 9.15am and at 11.15am, and a fortnightly 'mid-week service'. For two years the church has held “The Gathering Weekend” to bring all its congregations together for teaching and worship. Since opening up after the Pandemic restrictions and following feedback from the church, we also gather as the whole church once a month in the local secondary school.

Ministries and Activities

The church has many activities designed to express the truth of the gospel of Christ and to show the love of God to a needy world. These include:

• Men's Ministry
• Women's Ministry
• Youth Ministry led by our youth Pastor
• Children's work from birth to end of primary school led by our children's worker
• Community Money Advice (CMA) centre
• Souper Friday - an outreach cafe and food distribution ministry
• A variety of small groups for discipleship
• Home mission (a partner church in Melksham and local food bank)
• Overseas mission partners (AIM, Bible Society, BMS, Compassion, International Teams, Open Doors, Tearfund, WEC)

The Church and Leadership Team

The Leadership Team consists of a senior pastor, and youth pastor in addition to the associate pastor we are seeking to call, Elders and Deacons. There is also a Children's Worker and Church Administrator on staff.

The Youth Minister and his family live in our second manse, situated by the church building. The Minister's manse, a three-bedroom house close to the town centre, is currently let as the other ministers lease their own properties to the church as Manse.

The church has grown in the last 10 years from 123 adults and 57 children on an average Sunday morning service to a total of a little over 300 across 3 Sunday services. The proportion of adults to children remains around 2:1.

As we move into a new season for our church and under the current cultural climate we believe we must stand on the solid rock of Jesus and boldly proclaim this Good News without wavering. We believe that only through our Lord Jesus Christ's death and resurrection can anyone be saved and that the Bible is God's living word and is as relevant and true today as it has always been.

Stipend

The Stipend is flexible to suit the successful candidate in a mix of salary and housing benefits including the possibility of occupying one of our manse properties, but total benefit package will be in the region of £40,000 plus contributions to the BU Pension Fund.