Where we started

Watch a video message from Jago from 2020 about the need for a revitalisation of our building, read what some of our congregation members think about Revitalise 250 (hover over each persons image) and find out more about our needs (expand each section).

  • "At the moment it’s difficult to give people a proper welcome as we (hosts) spend time trying to avoid a bottleneck from forming in the entrance. This means we have to hurry people through the entrance and into the main part of the church - not a great way to be welcomed into a church if you’re new!

    The new welcome spaces will open up and brighten up entrances and exits to the building. They will allow for easy circulation and display historic elements of the building that are currently hidden and celebrate our important heritage. I can’t wait to meet and greet people properly on Sundays and have the space to have tea and coffee with them, and a proper conversation before and after the service."

  • “I’m really excited to see the new plans for the extension of the church which will provide the extra space we need while keeping the integrity of the exterior appearance of the building. I believe the reordering will give us a wonderful sense of space in the interior of the main part of the church, and the flexibility to use that space for formal and informal worship as well as for other activities.”

Read what our church community have to say about our building project

  • “I’m very excited about all the planned improvements to HTC. I’m quite a foodie person and have cooked a few meals in the old kitchen. Usually a bit of a nightmare, problems with hot water, fridge, freezer, storage and the location by the loos wasn’t great.

    Providing a simple meal for the monthly prayer meeting, a welcoming meal to surprise Alpha guests or a celebration date night meal for the Pre-Marriage Course are going to be so much easier. Cooking, serving and clear up all wonderfully possible.”

  • “We’ve loved seeing the church grow over the past few years and have faith that there’s more to come. We’re so excited to see how the reordering will be part of this transformation - a more welcoming and flexible space for services and courses, room to grow our kids groups and, in particular at the evening services, we can’t wait to see the space enable more expressive and joyous worship”.

  • “A big issue that we have is because the audio equipment and set up is of a poor standard, the worship that we spend a lot of time rehearsing and putting time and effort into doesn't translate out into the congregation! Bad sound inhibits our ability to have amazing times of worship where the congregation can get immersed in the music

    Knowing that as a worship leader all of our efforts are being properly heard as they are meant to out front means that we can enjoy the worship that much more.

    It opens up a space that can flourish with more creativity and better worship that people can really respond to!”

  • “It is so exciting to see the potential for new space and growth for our children and youth work. More space is so important to us being able to teach well and safely, while enabling everyone to have fun. Currently so many of our groups have to fit too many children in for the size of room available. Bigger and more child-friendly, flexible spaces will really enable our children’s ministry to thrive”.

  • “It is brilliant that more and more young families are coming into our church… [However] the current room is overcrowded to the extent that it can be unsafe and the lack of capacity means the [crèche] is split over two spaces with one being in a separate building with hazardous route across a busy road. We need more space, within the main church complex, to enable us to cater safely and appropriately for the children coming to our church on a Sunday as it is a distinct barrier for those who are new to the church…

    After Revitalise 250, it will be amazing to have one larger space where parents and carers can properly engage with the service… whilst having a safe and well-equipped space for the babies and children to be. We are really excited”

  • “I’m so excited by this project and the opportunity of enhancing our building. It will allow the church to become a more welcoming place, to create more space to support our current ministries and to allow us to continue to grow”.

Our needs are:

  • Our main entrance is currently dark, uninviting and it often becomes a bottleneck on a Sunday to people getting in and out of the building. The secondary south entrance (the Wilberforce Centre) is currently poor, and there are no welcoming fellowship areas in the church. We need to advertise our alive and active community.

    We have planned a more visible and welcoming entry to celebrate that Jesus welcomes all. We are going to open up and make better use of the space in both the main entrance and the secondary south entrance. The latter will provide easy access to a second meet and greet space on Sundays with tea and coffee facilities. These changes will greatly improve the flow of people, buggies and wheelchairs into and out of the building.Description text goes here

  • At the moment, the ground floor worship and community space is inflexible, limiting our building’s usefulness. We cannot currently meet the changing needs of our congregation and community. Our refurbishment includes chairs to seat up to 428 on the ground floor of the church, compared to an existing capacity of around 350 on the current pews. Stackable chairs will enable full flexibility to cater for varied formats of services on Sundays and events and courses for the church and the community throughout the week. The elimination of the pew steps will accommodate wheelchair users and moving the pulpit slightly will open up better views of the worship space.

    The original pews in the balconies that William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect will have sat on will be kept due to their historical significance. The current choir pews will also stay where they are, but unfixed to create flexibility of worship in the chancel.Description text goes here

  • Our Revitalise 250 project is not just about addressing the needs of our church family and wider community, but creating opportunities. One of those opportunities we have is to communicate through our physical building the incredible story of the impact that Holy Trinity Clapham has had on the world. Our building is historically significant and it represents a remarkable heritage, but in its current state it is not fit for telling either the story of the past or the story of the present.

    The work we are planning to do will repair and restore our building so that we can communicate our past story as we look to the future. We need to communicate the significance of the church in the history of this nation and the Christian faith to visitors, congregation and users alike.Description text goes here

  • By God’s grace, our children’s ministries have outgrown our space! This means we’re currently having to send groups of children and youth to our church offices, across a busy road, on a Sunday so we can cater for them. This is far from ideal.

    We are planning to create more meeting rooms, with more space that will meet the needs of our current children’s and youth groups whilst allowing for them to grow.Item description

  • To ensure that we have the capacity for the ministries we want to run and the people in our space, we are extending the footprint of our building.

    This means at the rear of our church we shall be bringing the existing walls out, and digging down on the south side to create space for the meeting rooms. On the north side of the church we shall be installing a new kitchen so we can significantly increase our catering capacity, all the while making sure that our building is more accessible for everyone.Item description

  • It’s important that our church grounds continue to be a location for the church and the local community to connect, so we have been drawing up plans for creating a Wilberforce garden in a section of the grounds. This garden would draw attention to the work of Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect in bringing about the abolition of the slave trade, but also the continued existence today of modern-day slavery, to visitors, our church family and users alike.Item description