Over the past three years a fledgling church plant has taken shape in Wakefield, a northern English city of around 100,000, proud of its rugby league, its rhubarb triangle and its working-class roots.
Wakefield had long been recognised by other local church leaders as in need of a new gospel church. The neighbouring towns of Dewsbury and Pontefract and the city of Leeds are all blessed with faithful ministries.
Small window
In 2013 the leadership of Dewsbury Evangelical Church (DEC), six miles from Wakefield, saw a small window of opportunity to address the situation. A prayer group was formed and in 2014 Ian Goodson, an elder in the church supported part-time to do Christian ministry, his wife Lydia and young family moved to Wakefield. A recently married couple, a man in his twenties and a family who had arrived from Romania joined them and formed a Wakefield-based home group as part of DEC, ably supported by Graham Heaps (then co-pastor of DEC) and his wife Sue.
