A Short History Of Our Church
The Hampton Park Baptist Church was planted by Doveton Baptist Church in May 1987 with 5 families. The first meeting was held in the Hampton Park Secondary School and then the church moved to the Hampton Park Community House. Pastor Paul Young and his wife Janine stayed with the church for a short time due to personal reasons. Peter Bakker then took up leading the church as a Lay Pastor for approximately 2 years.
Doveton, Canterbury, Mitcham, Camberwell East, Crossway and Rowville Baptist churches played a significant role including financially in the early days.
Earle & Liz Prentice and family arrived in February 1990. The church and local community were growing rapidly at that time and the church moved to one of the factories in the commercial centre of Hampton Park known as Unit 4 in 1993. A dedication service was held on 25 April 1993.
To meet the needs of the church the Sonflower op shop was opened in 1998 and provided much needed funds for the church. In 1999 the church was formally welcomed into membership with the BUV.
In 2002 the current church building at unit 1 Orient place was constructed in response to the vision of Earle and the growing population in the area. Like a lot of major projects it ran a little late and for six months of 2001 the church met in the Regans road scout hall and held kids church in the Garton’s garage around the corner. The official opening took place on the 17th March 2002.
In response to the needs of the community counselling services were run from the building. This was supported by a partnership with Karinya.
In 2005 Earle and Liz finished serving with HPBC and Don Valentine served as an interim Pastor.
Grant Ludlow was appointed as the Pastor in 2006 moving from Doveton Baptist and in 2008 we celebrated 21 years as a church community.
The counselling service was now independently run under the banner of Rivergum.
Once when Grant was on Navy reserves exercises Barry Sutton served as an interim pastor for three months.
In 2011 Grant was called to serve full time as a Navy Chaplain.
Angela Garton was appointed pastor in June 2011. Angela had served in the church for many years as a volunteer and was seeking a paid pastoral role as part of her calling to ministry and ordination with the BUV. With Grant’s calling to Chaplaincy the church called Angela as Pastor.
In 2012 we celebrated 25 years as a church community inviting back to Hampton Park former Pastors and church members. It was a great time to reflect on the way God has impacted those who had been part of our churches journey up until this time.
For Christmas 2012 we partnered with Casey Life AOG to use their new but empty building as a place from where we could provide clothing and care parcels to the needy in our community for Christmas.
In 2013 we celebrated with the now Reverend Angela on her ordination under the BUV.
In 2015 the church celebrated Easter with a combined service joining with the local Anglican and Uniting churches for a moving service with reflections on the stations of the cross.
We look forward to the plans God has for us as a gathered community of God’s people. Is God calling you to be part of our community? Are you ready to be part the plans God has for us?
