Helping people discover the good news about Jesus Christ was the driving force behind the opening of Crockenhill's first Christian chapel (on Old Chapel Road) back in 1801. Those pioneers took a serious look at ordinary village life and became convinced that their contemporaries were "sitting in darkness, and in the valley of the shadow of death" (as one magazine described it at the time).

Those Christians, back at the beginning of the 19th century, decided that they couldn't simply do nothing. So they built a refuge where people could come out of the darkness and escape from the danger they didn't know they were in.

Those Christians didn't think of themselves as being in any way superior to the rest of the villagers, any more than a life-boat man feels superior to the person he rescues from drowning. They knew that all of us have abandoned God and are lost without him. But if you've experienced a great rescue, would you leave others in danger, or would you do everything you could to bring them to safety?

It was a serious reading of the Bible which convinced those old chapel-builders of the darkness and danger we all face without Jesus Christ. It is the same ever-relevant Bible that convinces us to continue their work.