A church that is real about the messiness of life, rooted in Jesus and relevant to people’s present day experiences.

Our story

For three years Karen and James worked together in drawing alongside students in Bath. In 2019 Philip joined Karen and James in a conversation about beginning a new sort of community. Local Methodist and Anglican churches encouraged them. Then, on an autumn evening in 2019, upstairs in what was then the Fire and Brew restaurant, they gathered with family members, friends and strangers to explore together the Parable of the Good Samaritan. They used art, storytelling, live music and silent prayer. The pizza was good too. Since then, they’ve met in cafes, coffee shops and pubs - any place that enables a welcome - to root themselves in the Bible in the way that is real and relevant to our lives.

What Starting Point does on a Sunday is important, but only because of it’s potential to influence the whole of our lives. So we stay in touch and pray for each other. When an issue arrises, there is listening and vulnerable conversation. Because what we do with our bodies affects our soul, some meet during the week for a run or to play tennis. As a whole group we’ve been on walking pilgrimages, camping in an orchard and even gone wild swimming.

Starting Point embraces people from all walks of life. It has business analysts and artists, teenagers and the middle-aged, those single and those with partners. There have been new beginnings, baptisms and marriages. Some have moved on, many have stayed and there is a gentle flow of fresh faces as people join the search for what is real, relevant and also rooted in the received wisdom of Jesus of Nazareth.

If anything of this speaks to where you are in life, Starting Point is waiting to welcome you.