Willow Lane Church is an Evangelical church in and for the Marsh Ward area of Lancaster, meeting on Sundays from 11:00am-12:00pm (10:30am for refreshments) at Willow Lane Community Primary School. The church is mostly made up of people who live in and/or have a great interest in and love for the area and its people. Our vision and heart is to see God build His Kingdom here in the Marsh Ward area of Lancaster, reaching people in this area for Christ.
How we began
It started with a Life Group from Hope Church meeting and growing in the area, and then we started meeting and praying with other local Christians. As a consequence, we planted Church on the Marsh (the former name of Willow Lane Church) from Hope Church Lancaster with a mixture of people from this Hope Church Life Group and other local Christians, meeting fortnightly on Sunday afternoons at Marsh Community Centre led by Josh Fox. Our first gathering was Sunday 29th September 2019.
Post-COVID restart
During COVID, we shrank down to only a handful of us on Zoom; some from Hope Church and some from other churches. We began meeting together again in person, weekly, in May 2021 with a very small number of us, continuing to meet on Sunday afternoons, trying out different times, and we saw the church slowly grow. At the start of Autmn 2022, Josh Fox and his family moved out of the area and Matt Parker began to lead the church.
Morning move
At the start of 2023, it seemed that the church wasn’t really growing anymore, and so much time and prayer was taken to seek God’s will for the future of the church. After a few months, it seemed that the LORD was asking us to take a leap of faith and move our weekly gathering to be a morning (with our first one being Easter Sunday), and to employ Matt Parker for 1 day a week. The LORD responded to our faith and began to grow His church again, bringing new people from the area rather than from Hope Church, with the church now being mostly made up of an elclectic mix of local people who have a shared vision of being passionate about people in the Marsh Ward area finding hope in Jesus, and seeking to grow in their faith in Him.
A change of name; a change of venue
Due to the growth of the church, from Easter 2025, we were able to employ Matt Parker for 2 days a week, and it was also decided that in September 2025, after 6 years, the church would move from Marsh Community Centre on Sundays, to Willow Lane Community Primary School. Along with this, it was decided that the church should change its name to greater reflect the wider Marsh Ward area that we were, and are, trying to reach for Jesus, renaming itself, Willow Lane Church.
We want to be a blessing to our local community and communicate the love, grace and truth of Jesus Christ.
