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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Like all Christian churches, our history goes back to the foundation of Christianity, through those who brought the Good News.
Looking at it another way, we can say our history began in 1662. This was the year when, the Commonwealth over and Charles II on the throne, a parting of the ways came for those whose Protestantism was of a more determined and independent kind. In that August hundreds of parish clergy were ejected from their livings because of their refusal to accept the book of Common Prayer exclusively for worship. Thomas Valentine, Rector of Chalfont St.Giles, was one of these. With him must have joined some of the congregation; minister and people formed an Independent congregation in Chalfont St.Giles, meeting where they could, probably in a house belonging to one of the Fleetwood family. One wonders whether John Milton ever joined with them for worship during his short stay in the village. The first chapel was built in 1721 and stood on the other side of Deanway next to what is now the Old Manse. We still own the a graveyard there. The later one, now sold to the United Reformed Church Housing Association, was erected in 1854. The independent church which came into being in 1662 seems to have passed through a stage of being run on Presbyterian lines until in 1812 deciding to be run in the Congregational way. In 1972 the Congregational Church entered into the United Reformed Church, a union of Presbyterians Congregationalists, since strengthened by the addition of some of the churches of Christ. This union was the first union across denominations in this country. Methodism arrived in Chalfont St.Giles in 1835, in the shape of two missionaries from High Wycombe. The present building was begun in 1866, to replace a smaller building erected in 1847. The church, which had been in the Primitive Methodist tradition, in 1932, with the union of Primitive and Wesleyan Methodists, became part of the Methodist Church as we know it today. Locally these two churches, Methodist and United Reformed, united in September 1977, and now share their life completely.
CURRENT ORGANISATION
The organisational structure of Deanway United Church is a mixture of Methodist and United Reformed Church traditions. The authoritative body of the church is the Church Meeting with day to day running controlled by the elected Church Council. |
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Deanway United Church |