Wymondham church starts work on new centre 

A Wymondham church has reached a £532,000 appeal target to build an extension to its building to provide a centre for the community and work on the project is just about to start.

Back in December 2022, Wymondham Baptist Church obtained planning permission for the extension to the building, which will be an extension to its current reception area to accommodate its Roots Café, a youth café and other community activities.

Pastor Paul Smith said: “The project aims to enable the church fellowship to offer more to the local community.  We are creating a spacious reception area which will serve as an open plan space where some services can be permanently established, whilst also allowing people to pop in and use our building when there are separate activities happening in the church.  The extension will enable us to offer our church building as a much-needed community facility.  One that will be ‘community-centred’ rather than just another community centre.

“The new area will be a space that Roots Community Café will work out of and the current church hall will be set aside for worship activities.”
 
Funding has come from South Norfolk Council, Congregational and General Trust, Community Action Fund, Paul Bassham Charitable Trust, Laing Family Trust, Norwood and Newton Settlement and GNGB Infrastructure Fund, Garfied Weston, plus gifts and donations from the church fellowship and the local community and fund raising efforts of the church fellowship. 

There was a set-back in early 2023 following a serious leak in the kitchen, explained Paul.

“After a lot of thought and prayer we decided to take the first step on the extension project by completely refitting and remodelling the kitchen.  Our budget was £20,000 and through the generosity of the fellowship and the local community this money was raised and the work carried out ‘in house’.  The re-design of the kitchen was a small part of the whole project, but with God’s help we have managed to do this work before the main work commences.  
 
“As well as extending the building we are hoping to be able to upgrade the rest of the building, the north wall of the church has already been cleaned and there are other areas that we want to improve.'
 
The Roots Community Café will close on July 21 ready for the build to start the following week.

Watch a video to find out more.

If you want to give to the project visit: www.justgiving.com/campaign/building-project-wbc
 
To find out more, ring: 01953 606520  or email: office@wymondhambaptist.org

Pictured above is a drawing of the new Roots Community Centre and, below the current church frontage.