At the end of August, Barry Drake retired as minister in order to put all his energy into promoting healing ministry in his role as East Midlands Synod Health and Healing Advisor.

Sadly, the church decided that this was the time to close the doors of the Netherfield URC.  The final Sunday service was led by Geoff Smith on August 30th.  There was a closing celebration service on Saturday October 10th at 3.00 pm. and over one hundred people attended to say farewell.

Barry writes:
The church web site carried a statement that -
"We come from a variety of different Christian traditions and value each other's tradition and theological stance.  We embrace one another with love in the enabling power of God's Holy Spirit".  

It has always been my dream that there could be a church that honours and respects the full diversity of Christian teaching, tradition and experience.  Sadly, the extreme tensions between opposite ends of the theological spectrum led some two years ago to a split in the church, and to some of our enthusiastic and active members leaving our congregation.  This was a great blow to me, and one from which I have still not recovered.  

The other side of the story is that in spite of much hard work, we seem to have been making very little impact in recent times on the people of Netherfield.  "It isn't that we don't want to be in Netherfield", someone said, "but Netherfield doesn't want us!"  There is a certain sad truth in that statement.

If you need to contact anyone about the premises, you will need to talk to the properties officer at the East Midlands Synod offices, 1 Edwards Lane, Nottingham, NG5 3AA.