Full Gospel Church History Page:

Brief history and location:

The Rushden Full Gospel Church is an Assemblies of God church that was birthed out of an evangelistic crusade in the 1930’s. Evangelist, the Rev’d Fred Squire came to Rushden in 1932 with Northamptonshire Revival. He started an evangelistic and Divine healing campaign in the hall above the Windmill Club. Around the same time he established churches in Wellingborough, Kettering and Northampton, as well as Rushden.
Various meeting places were used as the church continued to meet together. From using the British Woman’s Temperance Hall the church obtained a room in Cleaver’s Chambers, at the top of a flight of 44 steps.
In June 1937 some land was purchased at the bottom of Skinner’s Hill, where the road split three ways into Wellingborough Road, St. Mary’s Avenue and Duck Street, a very prominent location. Here a church was built and officially opened on October 2nd. At the official opening the hall was packed to overflowing (26th January 2002) and the building became the home of the Full Gospel Church family for almost 63 years.
On September 16th in the year 2000 more than 80 of the congregation marched joyfully from it’s Wellingborough Road location to take possession of their new spiritual home that was built in 1870 for the ‘Glory of God’. The building in no less a prominent position on High Street South (A6) more recently had been used by Northamptonshire Social Services, before that it was known as South End School, before they moved to their Wymington Road base.
A programme to renovate and refurbish the building was undertaken, utilising both contract labour and voluntary labour from many different people within the fellowship. Fifteen months later, the Rushden Full Gospel Church and Christian Centre was officially ready for it’s re-opening.
The building itself now comprises of a main hall which seats over 200 alongside a minor hall, which can be used separately, or to extend the seating capacity by fully opening the partitioned doors. Both halls are spacious, light and airy and have raised areas of staging. Underneath the stage in the main hall is a built in baptistry with facilities to heat and discharge the water. There are a number of adjoining rooms which provide office space and dual usage throughout the week. Four rooms have been turned into a catering area separating, cooking, washing, storage and serving areas.
The building itself is fully accessible for people in wheelchairs and there is a disabled toilet.
Off road parking in front of the Christian Centre is available for 30 cars and there is plenty of unrestricted free parking both in High Street South, and Wymington Road as well as other nearby streets.

It is hoped to expand and develop this whole focus on heritage through a forthcoming multigenerational project that will bring the history and memories of the older generation to life through contcat and web-page development of younger people.