Wellspring Baptist Church Newark
Report of the trustees for the year ending 31[st] March 2025
Initial set up and transition.
Newark Baptist Church and Church of Promise decided to amalgamate following several months of worshipping together and a period of prayer and consultation. They formed Wellspring Baptist Church, Newark following a unanimous decision to combine by the members of both existing churches.
During the transition period we are awaiting Anthony Collins solicitors negotiating the legalities of transferring assets such as buildings to the new church. So the two old churches and the new church CIO are operating simultaneously to allow us to transfer employment, financial and legal responsibilities from the old to the new church as seamlessly as possible.
So far we have established our statement of faith (see appendix), have considered what leadership means for Wellspring, identified the core values that matter to us as a church, put safeguarding policy/procedure in place and considered where gifting is currently being used/can be developed further. We are now looking into practicalities such as online presence, communications, opening bank accounts and deciding which practical events to continue to run/where new things need to be developed. Employment will move over from Newark Baptist Church to Wellspring when the insurance needs to be renewed in the autumn, in order to provide appropriate employer’s liability insurance throughout the transition.
Although the new church has its own distinctive vision and values, church life has existing patterns of worship, study groups and community action stemming from the two founding churches. The new church holds relaxed charismatic worship, with space for the congregation to pray, read Bible verses, or exercise spiritual gifts. There is a strong emphasis on Bible based faith with a desire to model our lives as closely as possible on Jesus teaching and the practices of the New Testament church.
God’s vision for the church
We asked God about the type of church He wanted us to be. Over a series of prayer and fasting days and leadership meetings several pictures and Bible verses were shared.
The sense we arrived at was that God is calling us to be an oasis of the Holy Spirit; a place of healing safety and restoration; a place that brings life to the desert. Hence we chose the name “Wellspring”. It was felt that everyone in the church has an important role to play in building the new church, but that we should not look back to the way things have been done in the past but expect God to do new things and not be afraid to set up new processes to accommodate that.
Initially this has led to a strong teaching focus around not judging others and the role of forgiveness in the church.
Regular Church Activities/Pastoral support There are a number of regular events that the church continues to run: Monday – open/non directed prayer meeting.
Tuesday – leaders/trustees meeting, usually a closed meeting, as it might include confidential details of individual’s pastoral needs.
Wednesday – Bible discussion group held at church.
Thursday – warm welcome space with free refreshments available at the Winthorpe road site. Sunday morning service – relaxed charismatic worship followed by a biblically based sermon. We hold monthly days of prayer and fasting culminating in an evening prayer meeting, often begun with a shared meal and taking communion.
Community outreach around the Winthorpe Road site
Originally Winthorpe Baptist Church, the Winthorpe Road site is owned through the East Midlands Baptist Trust Company by Church of Promise. It is being developed as a community resource. It is hired for use weekly by Mencap and Weight Watchers. The Thursday coffee morning held at the site started as a space for people to come and get warm in the winter but now runs all year round. It hosts a regular group of ten to fifteen local residents. The Winthorpe Road community garden is hosted on the Winthorpe site, encouraging people to work together to grow their own food. This is predominantly a summer activity, run by a team of gardeners from outside the church.
This year we held a free BBQ and fun day for the local community. We had approximately 70 visitors join us from the surrounding area.
At Halloween we held a light as an alternative to trick or treat. We offered free hot chocolate and hotdogs, activities/games for the children and a goody bag. Parents came in with their children to take a break from trick or treating. We had more than 50 children attend.
No15 community Café
Newark Baptist Church bought the premises at 15 Balderton Gate to continue to do outreach work to the homeless and those struggling financially by developing a community café. It has taken considerably longer than anticipated to get planning permission for the café front to be changed and the use to be moved from commercial to community use.
Initially the café had been run through the winter as a drop in providing hot meals and drinks for free. The Baptist church originally voted to make some funds available to cover the cost of the food and heating for this, but not all of that was spent as we receive a lot of practical support/donations from volunteers and the wider community.
Sadly the front of the café had to be boarded up this year, to prevent a rough sleeper returning to live in the large open doorway area. Planning permission has been sought to change the front of the building, but until this is granted we are accessing the café through the side door and running the drop in at the back of the building. In January 2025 a leak started from the flats above the back of the café, despite it now being March we are struggling to get this resolved. We have contacted the tenant of the flat, the main building owners and are in ongoing discussions with the building management company (First Port)
Involvement in wider organisations.
As Baptists we are affiliated to Baptists Together and the East Midlands Baptist Association. We are members of Churches Together in Newark. We support Leprosy mission, Baptist World Mission, and a missionary couple who are serving in South Africa.
We are heavily involved in the running of the Well Homeless Support Newark, which is a cross church team who seek to help the homeless in the area. The Well runs a Hope into Action house which is supported by several church members.
Church members were also key in setting up Newark foodbank, who continue to run it in conjunction with members of other churches in the town.
We also have church members visiting local prisons to offer church services through Prison Fellowship; again this is done in partnership with members of other local churches.
We are also looking working towards offering CAP money and budgeting courses to compliment the work we will be able to do in the café.
Developing those who serve.
Sara Brumhead is employed by Newark Baptist Church as the minister. She is employed for 20 hours a week on half stipend. She is an unaccredited minister, but has been appointed in the light of her experience running Newark Baptist Church over the past ten years.
We have just taken a vote as a church to employ Sarah Bosworth on a temporary contract for thirteen weeks to support the administration around the development of the community café. She will be employed through Newark Baptist Church as it currently holds the employer’s liability insurance and the HMRC account for PAYE.
Financial summary
In the future Wellspring Baptist Church will take over the financial activities of both Newark Baptist Church and Church of Promise. However this is in the early stages at the minute, accounts are just being set up in preparation, but no bills are yet being paid by Wellspring Baptist Church. All costs are being met by Newark Baptist Church and Church of Promise in the way they have been historically. Having submitted this inaugural trustee report we will be allowed to change our year end to 31[st] December as it has traditionally been for both churches. In January 2026 NBC’s accountant will be asked to examine our annual accounts and provide the appropriate independent financial report for the whole of 2025. However at the moment Wellspring Baptist Church has no financial activity to report.
Charity Trustees
Chair: Sara Brumhead
Trustees: Jo Stokes, Peter Smith, Mandy Smith, Lewis Lack
Approved by The Wellspring Baptist Church trustees on and signed on their behalf by Sara Brumhead (Chair of trustees)
Appendix: Statement of faith for the Wellspring Baptist Church, Newark As a community of Christians worshipping together
In line with the Apostles creed
We believe in God the father, Creator of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only begotten son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified died and was buried. He descended into hell, on the third day He rose from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, The Father Almighty, from where He will come to judge the living and the dead.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy catholic nature of the church, the communion of the saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.
In addition as Baptists
We believe in confession of faith, public repentance, baptism by fully body immersion and commemorating Christ’s sacrifice through the act of communion.