The Wirral Christian Centre.

The Wirral Christian Centre started life as an Elim Pentecostal Church. The church in Birkenhead commenced after a Crusade held in the Birkenhead Town Hall. The crusade team was lead by Rev Alexander Tee. A member of the team, Rev Paul Epton, remained in the newly formed Church as its minister and is now the senior minister of the Wirral Christian Centre and District Superintendent of the Merseyside and North Wales Presbytery of the Elim Pentecostal Churches.

In March 1973 the small group that had come together as the New Elim Church in the redundant Welsh Chapel on Woodchurch Road, could not have foreseen the growth and development that would take place over the next twelve years. Today the Wirral Christian Centre has three daughter Churches and is responsible for opening another three Churches. There are four ministers and a large number of staff helping to meet a number of needs in the community surrounding the Wirral Christian Centre.

The Elim Church changed its name to the Wirral Christian Centre because of its many activities reach so far beyond the confines of any small group or denomination. The Wirral Christian Centre has established the fact that it is here to serve all, regardless of denomination, creed or colour. The lively, happy family atmosphere created in the Church services has become the hallmark of the Church and the Centre.

The Wirral Christian Centre, formerly known to many children and their parents as the Birkenhead Children’s Hospital was built during 1882 and 1883. On 21st June 1882 the foundation stone was laid by Lord De Tabley and exactly one year later the hospital was opened by the Duke of Westminster. In 1982 after nearly one hundred years of nursing and caring for sick children the Wirral Health Authority closed the hospital.

The building was re-opened in 1983 by Elim Pentecostal Church and re-named the Wirral Christian Centre. The Centre accommodates thirty-nine elderly residents. A Child Day Care Nursery was added and now operates five days a week.

Our main facilities in Birkenhead comprise a main auditorium capable of seating up to 450 people and additional rooms and offices. A self-contained youth and children’s centre contains a further hall and other rooms for kids and youth clubs. The complex is completed by a Residential Home for the elderly and a Children’s Day Nursery, providing quality care for all in a Christian environment. Further to this is our second centre in New Ferry, reaching this community with God’s love through area church meetings and other events.

The Elim Pentecostal Church.

Founded in the country of Monaghan, Ireland, in 1915, the Elim Pentecostal Church, which originally bore the name Elim Foursquare Gospel Alliance, grew with amazing rapidity as a result of the great evangelistic crusades of George Jeffreys, so that its membership after two decades was some thirty five thousand adults. The Elim Pentecostal Church is part of that unique worldwide Pentecostal Movement which at the beginning of the century numbered a few thousands, but is now estimated to have over 30,000,000 adherents. Pentecostalists believe that, because of its spontaneous uprising in every country in the world, the Pentecostal Movement is the fulfilment of the Bible prophecies that God would pour out in the last days His Holy Spirit on all mankind.

The name “Elim” is taken from the Book of Exodus, where we read that the Israelites “came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water, and three score and ten palm trees; and they encamped there by the waters” (15:27). This oasis in the wilderness is a fitting symbol for a church, which preaches a message of rest and refreshing, salvation and healing for mans body, soul and spirit in the wilderness of this world.

“The objects of the Alliance are to spread the full Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and the fundamental truths herein set forth”. These formal words from the constitution set out the reason for the existence of the Elim Pentecostal Church.