How we got started

A group of 9 people of mixed ages and backgrounds, and from various churches in Hertford started meeting in the River Rooms (part of the Castle Hall) in Hertford in summer 1997.

These meetings (not yet a formal church) were small and relaxed.  An openness to pray with each other and also to listen to God through worship and the Word characterized the meetings.  Soon it became apparent that there was need for some leadership to be in place and for the church to have a name.  It was our heart to do something for the people of our community, and so Hertford Community Church was our choice.  It was also true to say that we intended it to speak of the community we were building in the church, and the style of sharing and Christ-centered openness we longed for in our lives.  We did not want there to be a ‘churchy’ feel to it.  We were sure that our past experiences of church had taught us things from which we wanted to benefit.  Forming a ‘club’ for Sunday meetings was definitely not an aim.  We still only had one ‘cell’ but were committed to the idea of cell church, and we all went to some cell church training in the early months.

In January 1998, after we had met and prayed through the decision and method of appointing leaders for several weeks, it was agreed that two key members should lead the church as a team.  That team would need to grow as the job of leadership grew (and indeed it would soon need to include other adult cell leaders, youth cell leaders, etc.).  We defined the role of our key leaders as being those who would direct, strategize, encourage and empower rather than the ‘man at the front who does it all’ model we had all known previously.  We took our role from the life of the early church, as we understood it from Scripture.  We found no ‘single-man-ministry’ demonstrated there, and so wanted to establish our church as a place where everyone had a role.

Pioneer Affliliation

Our partnership with Pioneer was the end result of an approach to Ichthus, New Frontiers and Pioneer.  The latter responded in a way in which we felt confidant and the more we found out about the concept of Pioneer (non-religious, based on relationship above all) and their way of networking, the more we wanted to be part.  We began our formal ‘Association’ with them in late 1998? And became a full Partnership church in ? 2000.

We soon wanted to identify ourselves with other Christians, and so we sought to be part of Hertford & District Churches Together.  In due course, we were invited into H&DCT.

The move to Pines School

Whilst two key leaders were at the Pioneer Leaders’ Conference in February 1999, Martin Scott prophesied that we should ‘find our field’ and join God in His work in it.  We had been praying since the early days about our ‘field’ – where God wanted us to be involved within Hertford.  It was unclear because the River Rooms were very much in the center of the patches of a lot of other churches.  The ‘fields are white,’ but we needed to know which was ours.  We prayed for many months and this as a church, and during this time, at Spring Harvest, God spoke to some members of the church about the Pinehurst Estate, or some aspect of work on it.  We began to pray about the estate and prayer walk on it.  We distributed the ‘March for Jesus’ prayer day leaflets to every home in June 1999, and we became more aware of the people and the small community in existence.  Later in 1999, we hired the Pinehurst Community Centre hall to meet on a few Sundays so that we could ‘put ourselves in God’s path’ concerning the estate.

We decided that the Christmas 1999 meeting would be a good time to ask people from the estate to join us for a Sunday morning.  We had about a dozen visitors and kids for a simple Christmas celebration, mulled wine and minced pies.  We were getting to recognize a few faces now.

After a few months, we made the decision to meet at the school as opportunities were opening up there.  The school was keen for us to use their hall, so we finally left the River Room and started weekly Sunday morning meetings there in May 2000.

Outreach on Pinehurst Estate

In September 2001, HCC started the Pines Preschool on the Pinehurst estate following the closure of the existing preschool.  During Easter 2004, the Pines Preschool moved from the site of the former Pines JMI School to the community centre.  The preschool is managed by Sue Armstrong, a member of HCC.

When the Pines School closed after the 2003 school year, HCC provided a minibus for commmunity use.  The primary use of the minibus is to transport students from Pinehurst to Hertford Heath JMI School.  It is also used for various other functions, including youth events and day-trips for the older population on Pinehurst.