Christian Comment with Graham Hobbs Minchinhampton Baptist Church

I was passing through, with two friends on motorbikes, when we looked down from Rodborough.

Stroud looked and felt awful.

Instead of going through it to Gloucester, we returned to Cirencester and went from there.

Little did I know that, two years later, I would be married to a local girl and spending most of my life here.

I loved the countryside but, spiritually, the place felt dead.

The churches seemed so limited and I was keen to get away to somewhere God was more obviously at work

Roll forward 32 years, back to Rodborough Common, praying for a big Christian event in Stroud.

Thick clouds obscured the sun but a shaft of light broke through as some of the cloud parted.

Then it happened again – and again until more than a dozen shafts of light brightened the place.

Finally they grew larger until they coalesced to form a clear sky, lighting up a beautiful town.

The picture reminded me of the dozen or more Christian organisations working in the town since I settled here, causing the darkness of my first experience to recede.

I felt God saying: “Graham, I am at work here. I stopped you moving away because I wanted you to be part of what I am doing.”

This Sunday, only about 1 in 20 people in the Stroud district will be in church.

Does this mean Christianity is dying here?

No, because the number of backsides on pews is not a measure of what God is doing.

Imagine what Stroud would be like without The Door, Ebenezer, Food Bank, Hospital Chaplaincy, Ignition, Listening Post, Marah, Scroll Eaters, Shoppers’ Creche, Street Pastors, Tiddley Winks, Specially 4 U (apologies if I’ve left some out.)

A recent visitor to a Churches Together event in Stroud said that several public organisations would fold without Christian input, most within three months.

Whether that is the case or not, God is definitely at work in Stroud.