Founded circa 1985 — over 40 years old today Leader of record (2015): Deaconess Clare Douglas [Current leader — to confirm]

The Wednesday Group has been a vibrant and unmistakable feature of HBC life for over four decades. As Deaconess Clare Douglas wrote in 2015: “The Wednesday Group was founded 30 years ago by some forward-thinking members of the church, who may not have thought that thirty years on this group would still be a vibrant part of this church. The priority of the group at the time was to think up ways of injecting some financial input in the church as the membership was low and other existing pressures.”

The group’s mid-week meeting has become a quiet engine room of HBC: a place for prayer, study, fellowship and forward-thinking work on behalf of the wider church. By 2015 the group had a membership of around 25 and, as Clare Douglas wrote, “when we meet we are of one accord in the name of Jesus our ever loving Saviour.” Their motto for that anniversary: “We will say that we vow to carry on with hearts ablaze and voices high to give God praise for thirty years.”

A distinctive feature of the Wednesday Group is its sustained programme of trips — both seaside outings in the UK and trips abroad to places such as Spain and France. These trips, the 2015 booklet records, “were always open to people in the community”, and the church has “seen a sharp rise in attendance on outings to the seaside outside London and trips abroad organized by the Wednesday Group.” The trips have become one of HBC’s most effective bridges into the wider community.

The Our History page on the website now records the Wednesday Group as “now over 40 years old.”

Sources: [125th] pp. 45–46; [Web History] (40 years and counting).