Vacancy for Full-time Pastor

Pound Lane Free Church is an independent evangelical church affiliated to the FIEC, located in the growing village of Isleham, between Newmarket and Ely in Cambridgeshire, close to the Suffolk border.

Isleham is a rapidly expanding village with about 1400 houses incl. the village river marina. A number of our membership and congregation come from surrounding villages and towns and two USAF bases are within 8 miles of the village and we regularly have service personnel and their families worshipping with us during their, typically, 3 year stay in the UK.

We are seeking a full-time Pastor to work alongside the elders and deacons in leading the church as the current Pastor is due to retire. The focus of the Pastor will be in preaching, pastoral care, and leading the church by example with particular concern for evangelism and continuing / developing our interest in several overseas missions and overseas workers.

About Pound Lane Free Church

The church has been here for over 300yrs and it was to its Pastor that Spurgeon came to be baptised in the nearby river Lark. It has existed as an independent Free Church for 45 years.
The congregation is all-age and numbers typically 30+ am, 10-15 pm with a Membership of about 30. We hold two services each Sunday, have a mid-week Bible Study & Prayer meeting, women’s and men’s meetings, a full range of children’s and young people’s groups. Much of the Pastor’s work is in building relationships with those outside of the church – we hold a weekly outreach coffee morning and pre-school Music Mayhem group that is very well supported by mothers from the village and surrounding villages.
We run Christianity Explored courses as needed. We currently enjoy a good relationship with the village primary school where the Pastor has been able to take Assemblies prior to COVID.
We have a very active overseas missionary interest via Zambesi Mission, NTM, Kerusso Trust, and Leprosy Mission with a commitment of at least 10% of our undesignated income going to support overseas work.
We use a mix of traditional and new hymns and songs in worship and have a small worship group which leads our sung worship under the direction of the Pastor / service leader. We use the ESV for public reading and preaching.

Doctrinal Distinctives

We hold a Reformed, non-charismatic position, holding to the inerrancy and absolute authority of scripture, following a traditional evangelical approach to Biblical interpretation with a focus on systematic, and sometimes topical, expository preaching.

What we are looking for

We are prayerfully looking to find a man who fulfills the following:

He must be in full agreement with the church’s Basis of Faith (see our website). He must have a clear call to church ministry and to working with us in this rural community.
He must be a man of prayer and personal discipline in his study of God’s Word, who is able to work well within a leadership team, and who will lead the church by personal example.
He must be passionate for the glory of God in all things, and demonstrate this in developing evangelistic opportunities in the community (Roger Carswell has worked with us regularly in past years), promoting missionary awareness, and focusing the church on spiritual growth and personal holiness.
He must always seek to preach the Word to the glory of God, the spiritual growth of the church, and the conversion of sinners. Whilst previous formal Bible training would be advantageous we will consider anyone who shows a clear ability to rightly handle and preach God’s Word. Support for further training may be available as needed.
He must seek to relate well to people at a personal level, having a caring nature and providing biblical and consistent Pastoral care as needed.

What we can offer

plfc is a warm, loving and caring family, who will certainly want to support in prayer and practise, any man who comes with a heart to serve in the church. We are blessed with a three storey fairly new extension which provides rooms for children and youth meetings, a hall as an alternative to the sanctuary for midweek meetings, a large kitchen and loos.

Although plfc is situated in a rural community, Isleham is itself a rapidly growing village with much new housing, a large marina (most of which provides all-year round housing), and our closest, similarly sized, neighbouring village (Fordham) has no non-conformist church, so there is much scope for evangelistic outreach.
A stipend in the region of £28K plus pension, all expenses and the possibility of financial help with further studying if wanted
Although we have no housing accommodation to offer, there is a lot of lower priced housing in close by towns (Soham, Newmarket and Littleport) if Isleham itself proves too expensive, or there is always the much lower priced option of narrow boat housing at the Marina for anyone brave enough to consider a home afloat!
There is a large, light, well heated Pastor's office in the relatively new extension building, or the Pastor can base himself at his home provided he is available at the church at agreed times
We would want to encourage the pastor to pursue any particular avenues of personal interest that can benefit the work of the church (including his own spiritual development), providing priority at all times is given to the demands of church ministry. For example Christian book writing, membership of village groups (to use for outreach) etc.

What next?

Hopefully you will find this information helpful in understanding where we stand as a church and what we are looking for in a pastor. In addition it may be useful to use these links to access specific areas of our website where further relevant information can be found (each will open in a new tab). Alternatively the menu to the left can be used to access all material on our website.

If you would like to apply for this position, or have specific questions that you would like answered, please contact the current pastor - Dave Hall initially by email at [email protected] If you are sending in an application it would help us if you could include some form of C.V. / Personal Profile incl a brief personal testimony, a link to the church where you currently serve / attend, and if possible, links to a couple of online messages that you have preached (audio or video). We WILL D.V. respond to every application received. If you do not hear anything from us within 1 week of making the application, please assume we have failed to receive the email and either email again or phone Dave on 07977142075

Many thanks for yout time in reading this and considering this possible placement.