Meeting as a church at St Augustine's

 
The church itself dates from 1163. It was re-dedicated on 30 April 1429 following extensive rebuilding and re-roofing, possibly necessitated by damage to its fabric during the Peasants’ Revolt 40 years earlier.

In 1993 the congregation, numbering 40-50, moved out of the church because the roof was dangerous. About £80,000 was raised to renovate the church hall for worship. In 1999, during a long period without a vicar, the old church was declared redundant. By then our numbers had dropped to about 25.

 

We wanted to grow from there and identified quite a strong ‘alternative’ community living in our area, and made a decision to be less ‘churchy’.

 

First we erected a new, more friendly, sign encouraging people to ‘come and develop your spiritual life’. Then, after surveying newer members to find out what attracted them to St Augustine’s, we created the Developing Consciousness course.

 

We re-ordered the building to make it more attractive, and rebranded ourselves as the Norwich Christian Meditation Centre, using modern marketing and advertising techniques to publicise our events. We encouraged the development of a Community Group to include those on the local estate, and organised a regular garden party for all local residents to create a village feel, although we are near a city centre.

 

We still use the old church on high days and holidays.