Halling Baptist Church was established and built in 1898 by workers from the Halling Cement Works as an alternative place of worship to the Anglican church in the High Street for those who wished to attend a Nonconformist meeting place.

Originally, the church  belonged to the Baptist Union. In the early 1970s, however, the church, in common with a number of other Baptist churches, withdrew from the Baptist Union, since it was considered unbiblical to remain in fellowship with a denomination which tolerated heresy within its ranks.

In 2008, the church joined the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC).
The church is also affiliated to the Grace Baptist Association.   

DOCTRINAL POSITION

We hold to the FIEC Doctrinal Basis (see Appendix A) and favour a reformed position.

THE ECUMENICAL ISSUE

As a Bible-believing church, and in line with the FIEC Statement on Ecumenism (see Appendix B), we are unable to have meaningful fellowship with other churches or organisations which are not thoroughly evangelical. However, we are always ready to have fellowship with other genuine evangelical churches whenever that is possible. Over many years, for example, we have enjoyed close fellowship with Waterford House Evangelical Free Church in Strood.

STYLE OF WORSHIP

Our worship is non-charismatic, but we sometimes sing contemporary songs and choruses alongside traditional hymns. A typical order of service would be: Opening prayer, hymn, notices, offering and offertory prayer, hymn, Bible reading, main prayer, hymn, sermon, hymn, closing prayer and benediction.

Our singing in the Sunday services is accompanied by an electronic organ. However, when our organist is unable to be with us, we use a laptop computer to play piano music from a CD which contains all the tunes for the hymns, songs and choruses in our hymn book, the new `Christian Hymns`.

The Bible translation that we use is the New International Version.