Welcome to our website

If you are visiting, or about to visit the area, and are looking for a place to worship, we would love to see you.  

You may have recently moved to, or near, Highbridge, and are looking for a Church where you will feel at home.  We invite you to join us on a Sunday morning or evening, you will receive a warm and friendly welcome.

Whether you are "friends we know" or "friends we have yet to meet", please browse through our pages, and if there is anything you need to know, or any comments you wish to make please contact us at 

admin@hopeinhighbridge.co.uk

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Andrew was born in 1971 in Belfast and grew up in a Christian family. From an early age he attended his local Baptist church and was baptised on New Years Day 1984.

 Oddly enough, although this was a period in his life when Andrew had very little to do with church, it was also the time when he did some of the most advanced theology he has done. In his first two years he filled out his timetable with Biblical Studies modules and a course on the search for the historical Jesus.

Whilst he was far from convinced by what he was taught, it was instrumental in helping Andrew re-evaluating and returning to his faith – although when he first went back to church he promised himself that he wouldn’t ‘get involved.’ The idea of taking seriously the humanity of Jesus is something that strongly influences the way in which he approaches both teaching and ministry.

Andrew spent a year as the Vice-President of the Student Union at St Andrews, and spent a few months working in a British Gas call centre in Edinburgh before spending a number of years in research and lecturing in Business Studies first at Nottingham Trent University, then at Birmingham and Aston Universities. Whilst at Birmingham he was introduced to Julie on a blind date and not long afterwards he somehow convinced her that marrying him was a good idea. They were married in Alvechurch Baptist Church, just outside Birmingham, in 2003. In moving to Somerset, Julie is returning to her roots, as she was born in the county but moved away when she was still quite young. 

Around this time Andrew started working for Birmingham City Council as a statistician, reporting on their performance on homelessness issues (it sounds more worthy than it was). He also began to investigate the call to Baptist ministry, having singularly failed to keep his earlier promise about involvement. Since 2005 he has been in training at Regents Park College, Oxford, whilst working as minister-in-training at Radford Semele Baptist Church, near Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. 

Whilst not working, Andrew is an enthusiastic novice in the garden, enjoys cooking (and doesn’t poison himself) and travelling both within Britain and abroad. He likes a wide range of music and quite a few sports. He’s not bad, but rusty, at table tennis.

He’s a big crime fiction fan particularly Taggart and Midsomer Murders and reading Ian Rankin and Colin Bateman novels. He also enjoys comedies like Frasier and tries not to miss Dr Who.