Zoar Chapel, St. Mary's Plain, Norwich, is an historic Strict Baptist Church. Its site, practically next-door to Norwich Central Baptist Church (formerly St. Mary's Baptist Church) is entirely an accident of where a suitable site happened to be in the 1880s, when the present chapel was built.
The church meeting at Zoar has a long and complicated history. It originated in a secession from St. Mary's over the question of closed communion, and suspicions that the St. Mary's pastor was inclining in an Arminian direction. After long wanderings, and a brief union with another church, the church meeting at Zoar was formed. Alfred Dye, a rather eccentric Norwich minister, ministered to the church in the Tabernacle, a building constructed during the Great Awakening of the 18th century, but finally they were able to build a chapel.
The church today is small, but the minister, Pastor P.B. Pont, maintains a faithful pulpit ministry in a city where many churches are either liberal or seeker-sensitive. The high pulpit inside is symbolic of the place of the Word of God in the services. Lord's Day services are at 10.45 and 6.30.
2 comments:
I'd love to see pictures of the inside...
Alfred Dye was the minister for the wedding of my great grandfather Jabez Relf and his wife Henrietta Gooderham in 1904. He is in their wedding photo. Jabez lived in Eastbourne. Henrietta lived in Eastbourne as a mothers help to the son of Henry Bradford (the Eastbourne Strict Baptist minister). The Gooderham's originally came from Norwich so possibly married here but the wedding was registered in Strood. Could Alfred Dye have come to Strood? Or would a wedding in Norwich be registered in strood?? I'm in Australia doing some family research. Thanks heaps, Angela
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