October 1978 saw the humble beginning of “Church On The Way”.  Eight people attended that first meeting in the lounge of the King family home, our congregation being made up of four adults and four small children.  By Easter of 1980 the number had increased to forty – far too great a number for the Pastor’s home, but God had plans for the little group.  A local Baptist Church with a dwindling congregation offered us their splendid building for Sunday morning worship – at no cost!

During our six months at Leeds Road Baptist Church we purchased a piece of land which was tucked away behind a pair of large semi-detached houses on Bradford Road, Idle, about 150 yards from Pastor Jim’s home.  This was council owned property and the £8,000 asking price was reasonable and affordable.  Our intention was to build a simple structure to house our growing church, but we hit our first problem when the City Planning Department demanded that we should have parking facilities for sixty cars.  We then began to doubt if we were in God’s will, because the Lord had told our Pastor that our future church would be in a prominent position, for all to see, and we were about to buy a land-locked site with a single access minor road, making us some eighty yards from the main road.

It was at this point that we experienced “Heavenly Action” as the Lord took control!  The then named C.E.G.B. owned the property adjacent to the Council land, and they offered a large area of land for the sum of £7,000, which was an excellent deal.  Then something quite remarkable happened.  One of the “semis” directly in front of our land came up for sale, but this was of no interest to us until the man in the home next door approached us with an offer to sell his house for £12,000.  We then realised that the Lord was setting everything in place!

We then made enquiries as to the cost of the house that was already on the market, and this was given as £15,000, so the total cost of the two houses and the land amounted to £42,000, which was a small fortune in 1981, and a challenge for forty five people to finance.

However, we calculated that by opening up the two houses, knocking down the walls and providing supporting beams, we could provide a decent sized meeting room and use the bedrooms for the Sunday School Ministry, and still have enough room for a crèche, Pastor’s Office, toilets and kitchen, with ample room for future extensions.

Our next step was to approach “Lloyd’s Bank”, who were quite brilliant.  They offered us the full amount of £42,000 at wonderful terms, and our story entered its second chapter with our solicitors completing the conveyance of both houses within two weeks – remarking that this was unheard of and only God could do this, so they wouldn’t charge for their services!  This was a wonderful gesture and blessing towards a young inexperienced body of believers.

Over the next ten years the church grew in numbers and we extended the building upwards and outwards until again the congregation growth demanded our long awaited new church building.  So, in 1988, the generosity of our fellowship enabled us to build a new sanctuary, which would accommodate up to 300 people, complete with baptistery, prayer lounge and administration offices as a ‘stand alone structure’ on our original parcel of land.  This was completed in 1989 and at this time some very remarkable changes took place around us, and we began to see what God had planned from the beginning!

The Aire Valley Police built their new Headquarters directly behind our property.  New roads were laid to the side and rear of our land boundaries, an access roundabout was built on the main road directly on the corner of our church, and with all these changes we gained additional land to the rear and to the side from our new neighbours at negligible cost!

An added bonus was that old industrial land on the opposite side of the main Bradford Road was purchased by William Morrison (supermarkets) and developed into a Business and Retail Park, on which now stands Morrison’s largest supermarket and many other retail outlets.  The result was that at this time we now overlooked one of the busiest roundabouts in Bradford, and had a highly visible prime location with wonderful opportunities to continue to develop, especially in Christian Education.
One of our Elders, Phil Moon, and his wife Audrey had a vision and passion for bible based schooling, and so in 1990 “First Steps” Christian Pre-School occupied the ground floor of the “old semis”.  This was a wonderful ministry, which grew and grew.  Its very success posed the problem: Where do the children go for their education from the age of five onwards?

In response to this Bradford Christian School was established, teaching five to sixteen year olds a full curriculum from a Christian perspective and within a lovingly Christian ethos.  From humble beginnings in temporary accommodation located in the church car park, the school has today outgrown our church site and now occupies its own premises with over two hundred children and thirty staff, fulfilling a prophesy given to us in the early 80’s.

In the mid 90’s we built a new two-story Youth Hall and Sunday School Room which completed Phase 2 of our early planning.  Phase 3 was to demolish the two old semi-detached houses and replace them with a beautiful new three-story building to provide accommodation for Canaan Christian College and provide new premises for First Steps Christian Pre-School and our growing Sunday School.

The College Building was erected in 2006, and is proving to be a wonderful asset for our ministry.  Where God guides He provides, and for thirty years we can bear testimony to His goodness and faithfulness to His children at Church On The Way.