We
are a small friendly Church with an active Sunday School. We begin
our worship together on Sunday mornings and then members of our Sunday
School go to their age related activities. When our service has finished
we all join together again to share refreshments and fellowship in
the Church.
We hold our Communion Service on
the Second Sunday of each month at 3pm and this service includes a
Lovefeast where a cup of tea is served and news from the congregation
and the wider Church is given along with a short sermon.
We welcome all who come to worship
with us and The Lord’s Table at Communion is open to all who
love the Lord Jesus.
Our prayer Group meets weekly. We
have a monthly Moravian Women’s Association meeting and a monthly
Ladies Fellowship who have a wide range of speakers and activities.
Several
of our members run a Puppet Ministry called ‘Hands of Faith’,
www.handsoffaith.org.uk and this group regularly shares in our
worship as well as taking their puppets to other Churches and activities
on request. They have recently gained two bronze and a silver award
at the European Puppet Festival.
We enjoy each other’s company and have a lot of fun at our various
social and fund raising activities – we particularly try to
have a mix of activities that are suitable for all ages together.
Our church is a Grade 2 listed building
and we have just finished a major repair and refurbishment programme.
This has given us a lovely kitchen and toilets including a disabled
toilet. We have been greatly helped by grants from English Heritage
but we have had to raise much money for this ourselves.
You can hire the Church and our Sunday School Hall for community events
and parties. For more information please contact our minister.
Our
Minister serves Fulneck Moravian
Church as well as our church at Gomersal and we share in the life
of the Yorkshire District of the Moravian
Church. We are also members of Churches
Together in Gomersal and Birkenshaw.
The Church Buildings
The present church was built in 1751
and in 1755 Gomersal became a congregation in its own right along
with Lower Wyke and Wellhouse in Mirfield. In 1758 girls' and boys'
day schools were established. A single sisters' house was also founded
and in 1793 a girls' boarding school. The additional buildings were
built onto the side and back of the church with connecting doors.
Later the church was altered into its present format, raised to two
stories with a gallery added in the 1860’s and the pulpit moved
to the south side and the pews placed lengthwise instead of breadthwise
facing the pulpit. The pews were fixed at this time.
The industrial revolution and 1870
Education Act brought changes to the settlement' way of life and the
sisters' house and schools were closed in the latter half of the 19th
century. The additional buildings were then converted into dwelling
houses which are managed by the Unitas Estates Company. The house,
to the left of the church as you face it, is the minister's house,
though this also at present is rented out by the congregation.
The Church was extensively repaired
in 2005 and 2009 and most of the fixed pews were removed and replaced
with chairs. During the summer months the Church is open for visitors
on Fridays from 10am until 4pm. Our extensive archives are now held
by the West Yorkshire Archive Service in their Bradford Office.
How the Moravians Came to Gomersal
Benjamin Ingham, an Anglican clergyman
born in Ossett and educated at Batley Grammar School, was at Cambridge
with John Wesley and accompanied him to America where he met the Moravians.
On his return to Yorkshire in 1738 he organised many religious societies
in the Leeds/Halifax area, one of them at Gomersal, and invited the
Moravians to join him in the work.
Benjamin Ingham then asked his society
members if they wanted Moravians to work among them. At a huge lovefeast
at Gomersal - answer was 'Yes', and the request was forwarded to the
Moravians in London. They sent various evangelists to the area and
rented Smith House in Lightcliffe.
On 26th May 1742 the 'Yorkshire Congregation'
was organised, when a document was signed by Benjamin Ingham handing
over his societies to the Moravians. In July the Moravian headquarters
moved to Smith House for a brief period before returning to London.
Gomersal was one of the societies belonging to the Yorkshire Congregation
and was settled as a congregation in its own right in 1755.
