Church marks birthday with expansion

AN EARLEY church is about to mark its 35th anniversary with a major expansion project.

Brookside Church opened in 1984 with just one main area for services and community events.

But new building work will triple the amount of rooms and allow the growing church to expand its community work.

Pastor Steve Prince, who is also chaplain at Reading Football Club, said he hopes the project will be completed by early next year.

“We are delighted at how the expansion project has gone so far,” he explained.

“People have been incredibly generous. We would like to keep our builder on site to complete the building structures in one go and to do this we need another £150,000 to add to the £300,000 already given and raised by our church family.

“We have had to temporary evacuate the building while work has been going on and look forward to returning in the not too distant future.”

Pastor Steve started Brookside as a church plant with just a small group of people. He said the expansion will create three separate areas instead of just one.

“We do a lot of work with local schools and the Christian Against Poverty group which helps people with debt.

“The expansion will allow us to do so much more and we are very grateful to everyone who has contributed and helped us achieve our goal.”

The church is based in Brookside Close. It launched as Hilltop Church and was originally an offshoot of Wycliffe Baptist Church in east Reading. It became Brookside Church in 2001.

At one point it had a Sunday School of around 200 children meeting in Coronation Hall in Woodley.

For more details, log on to www. brooksidechurch.org.uk