A part of the history of this church revolves around the open-air meetings
held in different parts of Lightbowne.
Although such meetings are not usually very productive today, they used to be!
The following account warms the heart...
In 1902, Mr. Hayward, the first honorary Minister, wrote
"In the summer we have held open-air meetings in front
of the church
and in various parts of the parish, conducted by our young men. One of
whom (himself a trophy of these meetings and a convert from ritualism)
has recently joined the Church Army. He is now working with a van,
and I have no doubt,
will one day volunteer for the foreign mission field."
It is interesting to know that this young man became known as the
Rev. Tom Darlington, who spent many years as a missionary in China,
until his health failed and the doctors forbade him to go back to the work.
For a short time he served his Lord at a church in Toronto, Canada,
later becomming Rector of Holy Trinity, Barnsbury, London.
His two sons went on to the mission field (Upper Burma), one of his
daughters became a missionary in Persia and the other daughter became a nurse.
What a record! Surely it was worth all that had been done, if for this alone.
The work had begun in prayer and was carried on in prayer
and God has abundantly blessed it.
About 1907 one of the Sunday School teachers, a Miss E.Whitehead,
volunteered for the mission field and went to Doric Lodge for training,
after which she was accepted by the Egyptian General Mission for
service in Egypt, where she did good service until her death on
August 13th 1933.
In June 1901, extra rooms were desperately needed to cater for growing
numbers in the Sunday School. So two railway carriages were purchased
at a cost of 20 pounds and placed at the rear of the church. The report says
"It was found impossible to heat the coaches satisfactorily in winter,
or to ventilate them efficiently in summer, yet some 30 men and about the same
number of ladies assembled each Lord's Day to study the Word of God, in spite
of the discomfort the experienced of being almost frozen in winter and
suffocated in summer."
(Editors note:
in those days, the men were in one carriage and the ladies in another) |
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