Gorse Hill Baptist Church, Swindon

A ‘hybrid’ approach to technology has helped Gorse Hill become far more efficient – and to reach a far wider and younger audience.

Technology has helped Gorse Hill Baptist Church become far more efficient – and to reach a far wider audience.
 
The church is situated in a diverse area of Swindon, in Wiltshire, and members of the congregation come from all over the world.
 
Once the decision was taken to go fully ‘hybrid’, and to start broadcasting church meetings and services, family members from China, India, Brazil, and many African countries began ‘dialling in’.
 
But Gorse Hill didn’t stop there. It has left almost no digital stone unturned – from building up its own website and using Zoom, to hosting on YouTube and Facebook and much more.
Our youth worker has been reaching out to younger people through placing faith-based comic skits and more thought-provoking items on the media they tend to use – apps like TikTok and Instagram.
Regional winner - West England‘We have turned sermons into audio podcasts and placed them on the Apple and Amazon pod networks,’ said church deacon Matthew Wright. ‘Our youth worker has been reaching out to younger people through placing faith-based comic skits and more thought-provoking items on the media they tend to use – apps like TikTok and Instagram – and we’ve also started a church Twitter account which both carries church announcements but also links to other media. 
 
‘We’ve found Facebook is a really good way to interact with older people, but where they really can’t get on with the internet we’ve digitally recorded sermons onto physical CDs and dropped them round to their homes.
 
‘Finally, we recently obtained a Microsoft 365 subscription for non-profit organisations, which has made everything run much more smoothly. Our old email system was creaking a little, so we all now have church email addresses, and we’re slowly transitioning to Instant Messenger, file-sharing, and MS Teams for church meetings, Sunday School and more.’
 
Matthew said the prize money will be spent on a Smart TV to help enrich Sunday School sessions.
 
‘We were delighted to win,’ he said. ‘Thanks so much to Baptist Insurance.’