Reaching island communities
According to Ryde Elim's Ben Brown, it takes vibrant ministries, improved facilities and outreach
With the past 18 months spent developing ministries, nurturing a growing international congregation, revamping a building and taking on a branch church, it’s fair to say Ryde Elim has been busy.
Interim senior minister Ben Brown is talking Direction through the multitude of projects the church’s leadership team have been working on since he and his wife arrived last year and as the congregation has grown.
“Esther and I joined last March as the church was emerging from Covid,” he says. “Although most of the UK was out of the pandemic, the Isle of Wight, due to its isolation, was still coping with Covid brought in by tourists.
“When we arrived pretty much the only thing happening in person at our church was a Sunday service. Nothing else had reopened.”
Senior pastor Paul Meredith, who with wife Rachel had led the church for 15 years and had seen God do great things during this time, tasked Ben and Esther with rebuilding the worship, children’s and youth ministries.
“When we relaunched the Limitless youth and children’s work we had a handful of children, including our own three and Pastor Paul and Rachel’s girls. These now run on Sunday mornings, along with a midweek youth club, kids club and a lively toddler group.”
These groups now attract an average 30 youth and children on Sundays and 60 youth and children midweek, plus the toddlers, parents and carers.
As the youth ministry has blossomed, so too has the youth worship team. A band of young people aged up to 16 now leads worship some Sundays. A youth church also disciples and encourages young people to know Jesus better and is starting to see friends invited along.
Worship is developing as the church is becoming more international, too.
“New families have come to the island to work in education and health – many from around the world. This has led to our congregation becoming more multicultural,” explains Ben.
Interim senior minister Ben Brown, left, is seen with a volunteer helping with the renovating of the church building
“We have people from 17 nations now, which is exciting considering the island isn’t the most international place.”
In addition, the church has seen islanders join, including those making decisions for the first time, leading to baptisms on the beach! “We’ve seen a new person here nearly every week since Christmas and they’re coming from all over the island,” Ben says. To understand the significance of this, he adds, you need to understand island life.
“A lot of islanders don’t like to travel far. To travel 20-30 minutes from Newport or Cowes to come to church in Ryde is a really big deal.”
This has led to extra volunteers in all areas of church life and Ben says the church is blessed with a fantastic team of people wanting to serve Jesus in church and beyond.
As the congregation has grown, ‘Encounter’ Sunday evenings have also been launched. Mainly led by Richard and Rajinder Buxton, people have been healed, testimonies have been shared and people have encountered the power of the Holy Spirit.
As numbers have grown on Sundays from 40 last year to up to 100 currently, Pastor Paul Meredith and the eldership realised they needed to redesign their building and expand its facilities.
The church building has been extensively revamped throughout and improved outside
This is where Ben and Esther’s arrival has been timely. As a bi-vocational minister working part-time as a self-employed kitchen and bathroom designer and fitter, Ben brought with him a wealth of expertise, plus experience of renovating several of his previous churches.
“When Esther and I were at Ashbourne we oversaw the creation of a new church building from scratch. At Stafford we did a renovation and created a multipurpose church facility including doubling the size of the auditorium.
“Wherever we’ve been, God has told us ‘Make space and the people will come’ and we’ve seen congregations grow significantly, sometimes tripling.
“Here we’ve gone from 90 to 140 seats, which we know God is filling.”
Nearly the whole church got involved in renovating Ryde Elim, with one of Ben’s favourite moments being the time he taught an over-70-year-old man how to fit a false ceiling.
This autumn further renovations are planned, the next stage being to create youth and children’s rooms and an office upstairs.
This isn’t the only big project underway, however. Ryde Elim is also getting set to take on a sister church in Sandown, about five miles away.
“It’s called ‘The Lighthouse’ but the pastors are moving to the mainland and are therefore giving it to Elim.
“Esther and I will oversee this new church, including its Sunday afternoon service,” says Ben.
“Then we hope to do what we have done here and launch kids clubs, a youth club and a toddler group.”
With Sandown being a heavy tourist area between May and September the couple are keen to offer something for locals in the months when everything closes. Community craft fairs, fun days and barbecues have proved popular in Ryde and could work in Sandown too.
“We want to instigate things because we want to be a church in the community, showing the love of Jesus and to see people’s lives transformed on the island,” says Ben.
Worship around the island
Ryde Elim enjoys being involved with the Isle of Wight’s Lionheart summer Christian festival.
“Our Limitless Kids team have led the children’s work and our prayer ministry team, led by Richard and Rajinder Buxton, have headed up prayer ministry,” says Ben.
As part of the Wight Church Network, Ryde Elim gets involved in other events too, not least because of its growing worship ministry.
“My wife Esther is our worship director and loves training and equipping people, so we have a growing worship team and get asked to help at many joint-church events.
“There are around 100 churches on an island with 141,000 people and it’s exciting to be involved with inter-church events.”
This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.
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