Plan for biggest church in Britain

It will hold five times as many worshippers as Westminster Abbey and its baptism fonts will be the size of Jacuzzis. An attempt to build Britain’s first Pentecostal mega-church, with room for a congregation of 10,000, will go before planners tonight.

The controversial Nigerian television preacher Matthew Ashimolowo is behind the scheme to build the Kingsway International Christian Centre – bigger than any cathedral or mosque in the country – next to the town of Rainham in east London.

Its auditorium would span an area the size of the Wembley football pitch. More than 1,000 Pentecostalists are expected at the planning meeting at Stratford town hall tonight, where they will meet at least 200 opponents of the £70m plan.

Church leaders believe the meeting represents the biggest test yet of the country’s willingness to accept US-style Pentecostalism. It is England’s fastest-growing branch of Christianity and now attracts an estimated 300,000 people to services every Sunday.

Ashimolowo draws congregations of 6,000 to a disused cinema in Waltham Forest. Now he wants to expand with the help of donations from his congregations at 18 branches in the UK, two churches in Nigeria and one in Ghana, which have risen to £10m a year.

In 2005, Ashimolowo was embroiled in a Charity Commission investigation which ordered him to repay £200,000 to the charity which ran the church.

The church argues that it has already moved to make way for the London 2012 Olympics and says it was offered the land in a deal with the London Development Agency to build a new headquarters. If the plans are rejected, it will appeal. If the scheme is approved, building work is due to be completed by 2013.

Read Another Article

Five young British Muslims in terror material case are freed
Singer aims to catch the wind with a hippy university

Related News Articles Topic(s): Kingsway International Christian Centre Subscribe to Religion News Blog updates Subscribe to Religion News Blog [What is this?] Get Religion News Blog's headline by Email [What is this?] Follow Religion News Blog at Twitter Find Related Information Use our custom search engines to find additional research resources on religions and cults: ApologeticsSearch.com: Search for apologetics articles, books, videos, and other research resources across 135 Christian apologetics websites and blogs. CounterCultSearch.com: Search for information about (religious) cults, cult-like organizations, and cults experts -- as well as paranormal-, New Age, and pseudoscientific claims -- across 260+ websites, blogs and forums dedicated to cult research, spiritual abuse, ex-cult counseling & support. Find Related Religion & Spirituality Books at Amazon.com Kingsway International Christian Centre Possibly related... or Most Popular Religion News Articles Kent Hovind: Evangelist arrested on federal charges Beast’s real mark devalued to ’616′ Muslim Woman Gives Sex Advice on Arab TV Michael Jackson Confirms Conversion to Islam Kent Hovind, ‘Dr. Dino,’ guilty on all counts The fall and rise of Carlton Pearson Search False prophet Harold Camping sets another date for rapture: May 21, 2011 Watch the film Theo van Gogh was murdered for Kent Hovind — Dr. Dino — sentenced to 10 years in prison

Search Religion News Blog