I came across these men of African descent engaged in evangelism in Leicester this year. They had complained that the staff from the City Council had ‘moved them on’ to this quieter spot, away from the busy streets. One of them sardonically observed to me that the local Muslim evangelists were seemingly exempt from any Council objections, whose stalls occupied the best positions.
Rivington Church, which pleasingly has no saintly dedication, is in the pretty little village between Blackburn and Bolton, which it shares with the Unitarian Rivington Chapel, which was once Presbyterian. In its grounds, there is a remarkable number of seventeenth-century gravestones, one of which goes back to James I, in 1616:
This funeral effigy of Joan de Vere was made some time after she died in 1292. Originally placed in Lewes Priory, it was relocated to Chichester Cathedral in the sixteenth century’s dissolution of monastic institutions. She is flanked by two sets of weeping angels, whose heads zealous reformers or puritans saw fit to remove.
Strathaven Evangelical Fellowship (South Lanarkshire) meets in premises which began as a Brethren meeting hall which was built about 1876. In 1989 it was rebranded and the Lord's people continue to gather there.
01282 540 562
pastor @ martintop. org .uk
Salem Chapel, Martin Top
near Rimington, Clitheroe, Lancashire BB7 4EG
Salem Congregational Chapel is a registered charity No. 252401 (England & Wales)
Sunday Worship 10.45am & 6.00pm