We are a small, friendly, family Church. We begin our Family Worship together on Sunday mornings at 10.30am and then part way through the service members of our Junior Church go to their age related activities. When our service has finished we all join together again to share refreshments and fellowship in the Church. We welcome visitors and hope that all will feel welcome in our in our Church. We hold our Lovefeast and Holy Communion Service on the Second Sunday of each month at 3pm. In the Lovefeast part of the service cups of tea and biscuits are served, news from the congregation and the wider Church is shared and a short address given. The Lord's Table at Holy Communion is open to all who love the Lord Jesus. The Prayer Group meets every Thursday at 2pm at the home of one of our members or in the Church Hall to pray for the congregation, the local community and the wider world. The Moravian Women's Association meets on the second Wednesday of the month at 7.45pm in the Church Hall or the Church.
The Ladies Fellowship meets on the first Wednesday of the month at 8pm in the Church, and has a wide range of speakers and activities. Wellbeing Wednesday is usually on the third Wednesday of the month at 10am, with a short themed walk, refreshments and Dru Yoga (including chair yoga). Dates for Spring 2017 are: 15th February, 22nd March, 26th April, 17th May, 21st June. We also have a Julian Meeting which is usually on the second Wednesday of the month at 10am. A reading or piece of music leads into a time of silent, contemplative prayer. Dates for Spring 2017 are: 11th January, 8th February, 8th March, no meeting in April, 10th May, 14th June. Cup of Hope coffee mornings follow the Julian Meetings at 10.45am, with Fairtrade tea and coffee and home made cakes. We enjoy each other's company and have a lot of fun working together and at our various social and fund raising activities- we particularly try to have a mix of activities that are suitable for all ages together.
We have an annual Heritage Open Day on the second weekend in September on which the church is open and there are various displays about the history of the congregation and its buildings. In 2017 the church will be open on Sunday 10th September from 1 to 4pm. We have a close relationship with Little Gomersal Community Association and hold occasional joint events. We have worked together on a project called Gomersal and the Great War to commemorate the centenary of the First World War which launched on 3rd August 2014. One of the outcomes of this project is a book called 'The Great War Minister's Diary' which has been compiled by Br Christopher Shorten, and is available for download as a pdf file from the Downloads section below. If you would like the book in the alternative epub format for iBooks, or mobi format for Kindle, you can request the file directly from Br Shorten by emailing him atHaving read the book, if you wish to support this church by making a contribution towards our heritage fund and outreach projects, you can now do this using PayPal.
See the Donations section below. Our Minister serves the Fulneck congregation as well as our church at Gomersal, and we share in the life of the Yorkshire District of the Moravian Church. We are also members of Churches Together in Gomersal, Birkenshaw and East Bierley, taking part in joint services and events, and activities with local schools. To visit the CTGB&EB website, please click here. Our church is a Grade 2 listed building. The Church was extensively repaired between 2005 and 2009. Most of the fixed pews were removed and replaced with chairs, and we have a lovely new kitchen and toilets including a disabled toilet. We have been greatly helped by grants from English Heritage but we have had to raise much money for this ourselves. During the summer months the Church is open for visitors on Fridays from 10am until 4pm. You can hire the Church and our Church Hall for community events and parties. For more information please contact the minister. Benjamin Ingham, an Anglican clergyman born in Ossett and educated at Batley Grammar School, was at Cambridge with John Wesley and accompanied him to America where he met some Moravian colonists.
On his return to Yorkshire in 1738 he organised many religious societies in the West Riding, one of them at Gomersal, and invited the Moravians to join him in the work. On 26th May 1742 the Moravian 'Yorkshire Congregation' was organised and various Moravian evangelists moved to Smith House in Lightcliffe. At a huge lovefeast at Gomersal the members of Ingham's societies gave their approval to the Moravians working among them, and a document was signed by Ingham handing over his societies. So the Gomersal society became part of the Moravian Church, belonging to the Yorkshire Congregation. In 1755 the Yorkshire Congregation was replaced by individual congregations at Fulneck, Gomersal, Lower Wyke and Wellhouse in Mirfield. The present church building at Gomersal had been erected in 1751, and in 1758 girls' and boys' day schools were established. A single sisters' house followed and in 1793 a girls' boarding school. The additional buildings were built onto the side and back of the church with connecting doors.
In the 1840s, our minister Rev Lauten was a regular visitor to the Red House, home of Charlotte Brontë’s friend Mary Taylor and her family. He was probably the inspiration for the Moravian Minister portrayed in Charlotte’s novel Shirley. Charlotte’s other lifelong friend, Ellen Nussey, attended our girls' school before meeting Charlotte and Mary at Row Head. Ellen’s sister, Mercy Mary, was a Moravian, and many of the Taylor family were also to become members of our church. Br Christopher Shorten has produced a short book on the connections between the 'Brontës, Luddites and Moravians' that is available for download as a pdf file in the Downloads section below. For a sample of what it is about, please click here. The Taylors contributed to the remodelling of the church and the new organ in the late 1860s, when the church was raised to two stories, with a gallery added and the pulpit moved to the south side with the pews placed breadth-wise instead of length-wise. The pews were fixed at this time.
The church remains in this format but without the pews. The industrial revolution and 1870 Education Act brought changes to the settlement' way of life and the sisters' house and schools were closed in the latter half of the 19th century. The additional buildings were then converted into dwelling houses which are managed by the Unitas Estates Company. The house, to the left of the church as you face it, is the minister's house, though this is now rented out by the congregation. Our extensive archives are now held by the West Yorkshire Archive Service in their Bradford Office. We can accept donations by PayPal. If your donation is for at least £25 and you are a UK tax payer, please consider gift aiding the donation, as it costs you nothing but allows us to reclaim a significant amount of tax. Complete and return the Gift Aid Declaration in the Downloads section. To make a donation, please click here. We can also accept donations through JustGiving. Simply text 'GOME01' and your amount (e.g. '£5') to 70070.
You can also help us raise money for free by shopping online through Easy Fundraising. There are over 2,700 retailers registered including Amazon, eBay, John Lewis and Tesco. Once you have signed up all you need to do is start your shopping search at the Easy Fundraising website and whenever you buy something a percentage of the price is donated to the Church at no cost to you. Family Worship and Junior Church at 10.30am every Sunday (Junior Church does not meet in August) Lovefeast and Holy Communion at 3.00pm on the second Sunday of the month Minister: Rev Michael NewmanThe Parsonage, 38 Fulneck, Pudsey, West Yorkshire LS28 8NT Tel: 0113 256 4828 e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Treasurer: Mr L Machell 12 Whinmoor Gardens, Gomersal, Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire. BD19 4HGTel: 01274 873408e-mail: Gomersal Moravian Church, Quarry Road, Gomersal, Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire BD19 4JB