Pentecostal

Historic England highlighted how faith groups, including London Pentecostal churches, have taken over listed former cinemas such as the Granada in Woolwich and the Gaumont State in Kilburn, keeping them in use.

The Pentecostal Gospel Showers Family of Churches sent 50 people more than eight hours to York District in Westmoreland after Hurricane Melissa, walking the last stretch where damaged dirt roads stopped vehicles, and delivered more than 500 relief packages.

Hurricane Melissa destroyed the Porto Bello Pentecostal Worship Centre in Montego Bay. About 30 members worshipped under two tents on the site as the pastor said they must pool their resources to rebuild.

Hurricane Beryl tore the entire roof off Beacon Pentecostal Church of God Trinity in Treasure Beach and nearly all of the roof off its pastor’s adjoining home. Services went on under the open sky, and a GoFundMe was set up.

An RCCG congregation that outgrew a scout venue raised a deposit, took out a mortgage and bought St Christopher’s, a C-listed former Church of Scotland building in Edinburgh that had been closed for two years.

St Elizabeth’s Pastor Everton Charlton, honoured for 36 years of service, began Elim Shiloh Apostolic Church with an open-air service in 1987 and went on to secure a church building and build an education centre on its grounds.

Gospel artiste Minister Marion Hall launched a GoFundMe appeal to buy a US$2.7 million property for her Holy Ghost Pentecostal Church, saying US$1 million would secure it with a mortgage. Early on, it had raised US$220 from six donors.

Rev Carmel Jones, a St Elizabeth-born Windrush minister who died in 2023, founded the Pentecostal Credit Union in 1980, lending to Black churches and businesses to buy buildings when mainstream banks and building societies would not.

A west London Pentecostal church, its community nursery and foodbank were locked out when developer Fruition Properties took possession of 2 Scrubs Lane, despite planning policy requiring space for the church in any redevelopment.

A Washington, DC, Pentecostal church partnered with developer Foulger-Pratt on a $72 million, 197-apartment building in the Navy Yard neighbourhood that includes a new 17,000-square-foot sanctuary on the ground floor.

Wildman Street Pentecostal Tabernacle, founded in 1935, grew to occupy property on both sides of its Kingston street and runs schools from daycare to high school, but lost about 80 per cent of members in a 2017 split.

Hillsong Church paid $23 million for Melbourne’s heritage-listed Festival Hall, a 5,000-seat venue that once hosted The Beatles, with founder Brian Houston admitting not everyone would like it as musicians questioned the church’s tax-exempt status.

The Ashford branch of the Redeemed Christian Church of God lost its base when historic Apsley House was approved for flats, then saw its bid to move into a business unit refused over the loss of employment space.

Merton Council’s freehold swap handing 120-year-old Merton Hall in Wimbledon to the Elim Pentecostal Church, with around £3 million of remodelling, drew a 4,000-signature petition from residents worried about access to the hall.

The United Pentecostal Church in Jamaica evicted Faith Chapel, a congregation of more than 1,000 that had broken away, from the Renfield Avenue sanctuary in Kingston 20 it had used since 1981.