Our History

 The Open Door Church, Peterborough was birthed as a community-focused charismatic church seeking to reach the lost and bless the city, with Russ Parkes as the founding pastor.  

The church was launched in 1989 as part of a church planting vision through Harris Street Baptist Church, Peterborough.  It met in Gunthorpe Primary School and sought to serve the north of the city. It became an independent Baptist church in 1992 and a member of the Ground Level Network of churches in 1995. 

During 1994 a new hunger for God and desire to reach the lost more effectively began to intensify.  This led to the acquisition of the Open Door Centre in Hallfields Lane, Gunthorpe in 1996. The centre was opened initially in 1997 as a café and meeting place for the local community but over time its focus shifted to a thrift shop where locals could buy things at affordable prices and also stay for a chat over tea and coffee. Now known as “New to You” the shop raises funds for our other community projects but its primary function is to love and serve the people in the locality.

By 1997 the church had grown and Russ began international trips to Singapore and Argentina to understand more about “cell” church and to experience revival fires first hand. As a result cells, called Life Groups, began in January 1998.  This helped the church develop a stronger sense of kingdom community and gave a greater clarity to relational evangelism.

Following this, changes began to take place in our style of worship and our passion for God and the Holy Spirit became manifest in many aspects of church life, especially in prayer.  The process of change was painful at times but a new place was reached in God during 2001 when we moved to Paston Ridings School to make room for the growth we were experiencing. Whilst here we received a word from God in 2003, through Duane White of the Ground Level Network, which challenged us to get “bigness into our spirits”. This has been a very significant word for us and caused us to pray it into being in our own lives and in the church as a whole.

In 2004 we moved again to give room for growth, this time to Hereward Community College in Eastfield. This was the first time the church was based outside the PE4 area of the city and caused us to broaden our influence to new areas and new people groups.  Significantly, in 2005, two new community programmes were birthed - The Resettlement Project (or Care Zone, as it is now called) and Project Hosanna. These projects minister to the poor and vulnerable people in the city and we began to see the people we were ministering to come along to our Sunday Services. These projects have become wonderfully and firmly established through congregational adoption and participation. This has not been without cost however as we have lost some members who struggled to embrace this aspect of church life.

The need for discipleship training became apparent as we began to reach more people, and especially for those with no knowledge of God at all. A great deal of work was put in to build what we now call the Establish Doorway with Genesis, Discovery, Freedom in Christ and Alpha courses – all designed to build firm foundations of faith as well as church family relationships.  

During our time at Hereward we began to earnestly desire and gain faith for a building of our own. We moved to our current venue, a redeveloped Gunthorpe Primary School, in March 2007 as a stepping stone to that process.

In 2007 we opened the CAP Peterborough Centre in partnership with Christians against Poverty to minister to those in debt and to promote good financial stewardship. Dave Key was appointed CAP Centre manager and several church members serve as support workers.

The Open Door Community Action Trust became a registered charity of the Charities Commission [No: 1122050] in 2008. 

Relationally the church is a member of the Ground Level Network of churches, the Evangelical Alliance and the Baptist Union of Great Britain.