About us
Portswood Church is an evangelical Church in Southampton. This page gives you a flavour of our vision, beliefs and history, along with the facilities we can offer.
Facilities
Portswood Church is aware of the needs of individuals, and works to help all to worship with us. To this end, we have a loop system for those with hearing aids, large print Bibles are available, and all main facilities are accessible to those with wheelchairs or mobility problems. There is a centrally-accessible disabled toilet.
Vision
The vision of Portswood Church is:
Core Values
Though recognising the need to be relevant to the culture of the day, we believe that the following principles of Portswood Church will not change.
Beliefs
We believe:
There is only one God, revealed in the Bible as three distinct but equal persons - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He is Creator, Saviour and Judge who sustains all things according to His sovereign will and for his own glory.
In the divine inspiration, authority and sufficiency of The Bible. It is our final authority for what we believe and practice. Every word was inspired by God through human authors. The Bible is the Word of God without error, it is reliable and through it God speaks with absolute authority.
Men and women, though created by God, are born sinful. As a result, all are guilty before God and subject to His judgement.
In the essential and absolute eternal deity of the Lord Jesus Christ who is fully God and fully man. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, was born of the Virgin Mary and lived a perfect sinless life. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, dying in the place of sinful mankind and bearing God’s punishment for sin. He was buried and rose from the dead on the third day and ascended into Heaven where He is exalted as Lord of all.
The death of Jesus Christ was a unique sacrifice for sin and is the only means whereby our relationship with God can be restored.
In the person and work and deity of the Holy Spirit. He convicts of sin and brings new birth leading us into the truth. He inhabits the lives of all true believers bringing assurance of salvation and transformation into the likeness of Jesus Christ. He empowers believers to live according to Christian teaching as laid down in the Bible.
Those who repent and trust in Jesus Christ are forgiven their sin, enter God’s family and receive eternal life.
Jesus Christ will come again for those who have believed in him and ultimately he will judge the living and the dead.
Our history
Up to the year 1927, the site where Portswood Church now stands was a piece of waste ground.
A Church Group known as the Christian Brethren in St. Mary's, arranged an evangelistic mission to be held on the site and had a tent erected for the purpose. They invited an evangelist Mr.A. Widdison to conduct the Mission, and as so much interest was shown,
they decided to purchase the land and erect a building for Christian worship. lt was completed during the summer of 1928 at a cost of about £4,000.
There was no full time minister, but the Church was governed by a group of Elders, and services on Sundays were conducted by visiting preachers or by members of the Fellowship. The name given was Hebron Hall, but it was changed in 1963 to Portswood Church as many people thought the building was a Jewish synagogue.
In 1975 the first full time minister was appointed, John Carrick a Scotsman from Campbeltown in the Mull of Kintyre. John Symons, took over from John Carrick in 1986, after his return from mission work and Church leadership in Zambia. David Childs, took over from John in 2001 and served as Senior Pastor until April 2006. James Bemrose was appointed as Assistant Pastor in November 2003 and John Ayrton appointed as Pastor on 1st June 2007.