All about us

The Cheltenham Bridge started life as the Cheltenham Vineyard church, and was officially started on 27th March 1997. The founding and current pastors, Tony and Dwee, church-planted out of the St. Albans Vineyard where Tony had been on staff for nearly four years. The initial meetings included a small team of people who planted with Tony and Dwee and a group from the Oxford Vineyard who lived in Cheltenham and surrounding area.

Why Cheltenham?

Tony and Dwee had lived in the area before moving to join the St. Albans Vineyard in 1991 and had received a number of prophetic words about returning to Cheltenham sometime in the future. The ‘call’ to church plant began to grow in them from about 1995 when they both attended a Vineyard church planting conference in Wembley. The fact that there were already some people in the area who knew them from their time at Sevenhampton where they had led a small home-based group was encouraging and they knew the area relatively well. But most of all was a clear call to return to Cheltenham and try to plant a Vineyard fellowship.

As often happens in church plants, the early years were difficult and painful for all concerned as people expressed differing ideas and mistakes were made by almost everyone. As time went on, the God-revealed vision began to take shape as the Holy Spirit led us into a place of brokenness. Visitors today will find a community of believers centred around the Cheltenham Bridge which is hungry for more of God, loves to worship and minister healing prayer, is highly relational, wonderfully accepting and determined to live in grace and mercy towards each other and all those we come into contact with in our daily work and recreation.

From the outset – the very first talk Tony gave to the Cheltenham Vineyard – in our hearts it has always all been about Jesus: what He did for us on the Cross and what He taught us.