Churches together in Hampstead

CTH grew out of the fraternal group involving the clergy of Hampstead Parish Church, Heath Street Baptist Church, St Andrews United Reformed Church, St John’s Downshire Hill, St Mary’s R.C. Church in Holly Place and a representative of the Quakers in Heath Street. The Hampstead Counselling Service, still flourishing today, grew out of those first meetings. Later CTH extended its boundaries to include the Unitarians in Rosslyn Hill and the Royal Free Hospital Chaplaincy, and more recently Emmanuel, West Hampstead, St Peter’s, Belsize Park and St Saviour’s, Eton Road have joined us. Other local churches, such as St Thomas More and St Dominic’s Priory, like to be kept informed of our activities.

From the very beginning the six member groups came together each year to share Lent Groups, something we still do. Between the churches we try to run a house or church group each weekday evening and two weekday afternoons, all studying the same material at the same pace so that anyone having to miss their usual meeting can go to one of the others without missing or repeating any of it.

In the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity we hold an ecumenical service at one of the churches to which all the other groups are invited. In 2008 it was at St Saviour’s, with music by the Chalk Farm Salvation Army Band.

Since the demise of the Palm Sunday Walk of Witness which went from Hampstead to Parliament Hill we have tried to come up with another joint activity but so far haven’t found one everyone wants to pool their resources for, each church having its own cherished traditions. But the idea’s still there - we feel there should be scope for one more ecumenical event in the year.

We don’t meet often - there are already so many meetings that to turn it into anything more time consuming would be self-defeating - but when we do meet we share news of what’s going on in our churches - what’s going right, what’s going wrong, our joys and sadnesses.

Although our remit is not to raise money we do have a small fund which contributes to local charities - this year the Hampstead Counselling Service and the Camden Churches Night Shelter.