Fountains Church Bradford have taken the next step in their church journey by gaining access to their building as work continues to go well inside.
The church is based in Bradford’s Glydegate Square complex, a building that was once home to several nightclubs, but had stood empty for some time and become dilapidated and vandalised before taken on by the church.
Fountains Church, supported by the Church of England’s Strategic Development Fund, aims to be a highly visible city centre church with a strong Bradford identity: young, entrepreneurial, ethnically and culturally diverse, and confident about holding out a clear faith offering and call in the public space.
The Fountains team gained access to the building last week, with the insides transformed by the work that has been done there.
The Revd Linda Maslen, Minister at Fountains Church, said: “It’s actually just over a year since we took over the building here. 
“At that stage it was a complete and utter nightmare, all full of drugs, just completely devastating inside where people had ripped everything out.
“It was a tough period for us, it’s probably not the best year to plant a church, but we’ve all learnt some incredibly powerful lessons that I think will help us, not just next year, but for the years to come.
"It’s just amazing, it was really emotional when they handed the keys over, because we’ve seen it go from such a place of devastation to a place which is really very beautiful, peaceful and very calm.
“I just really can’t wait until we can start and invite people in.”
She added: “I think this is going to be a place where people can come and just pause, where it can be unhurried, where they can just come and be.
“I think post-Covid, that’s going to be so important because we know that although we’ve had so many horrible deaths from Covid, and everybody is so fearful of that disease, actually there’s so much else that’s around and about.
“As people come into this place, it is a place of hope.”
Phase one of the church’s plans have been launched this last weekend, with the church opening for private prayer, but services have not begun yet because of the current restrictions.
Phase two will see more worship space created, particularly for children and young people.
It is also hoped that the church can be used to reach out to those who may be on the margins of society.
Phase three, which will run across the building on the upper level, aims to use that space as an 800-person auditorium, but it’s likely to be some time before that plan gets underway.
Revd Linda said: “I think this is a real place of welcome for people of Christian faith, no faith, and other faiths.”
“It’s a place of gathering and we would love to be able to welcome people in, it’s going to be a place of hospitality.”
A version of this story, and some of the pictures, first appeared in the Telegraph and Argus- read it here.