Our Window
 It has to be said that Baptist church buildings are not generally famous for their stained glass. However, Oakwood does have a stained glass window at the back of the main church.When the Chase Side Baptist Church (forerunner to Oakwood) was formed in 1885 it was with the help of a loan from the noted Baptist preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon. The loan was £250 which served to buy a plot of land and put up a corrugated iron chapel. It's unlikely that the same thing done today would require any less than £250,000.  We forget sometimes just how important Spurgeon was to 19th Century evangelicals, he became pastor of a church at the age of 17 and at times preached to as many as 10,000 people, without the aid of modern amplification. Yet he was prepared to take an interest in a small group of fifteen Christians seeking to establish a Church on the rural outskirts of London.By 1935, with the new suburbs rapidly expanding, the Church took the decision to move to the present site at Oakwood. At the time the pastor was a student of Spurgeon's College, Frank Kingsbury, so it was appropriate in many ways to have some reminder of Spurgeon in the new building. Our window was the result, it carries Spurgeon's motto in Latin and English, "Et teneo, et teneor" (I both hold and am held). The words mean that Christians both hold out the truth and are in turn held by the truth of Christ. Spurgeon is quoted as saying: "We labour to hold forth the Cross of Christ with a bold hand among the sons of men, because that Cross holds us fast by its attractive power. Our desire is that every man may both hold the Truth, and be held by it; especially the truth of Christ crucified." |
 The window shows a cross held against a background of earth and sky with a light, symbolising the light of God's truth, shining from behind it. Over the years the window, and its motto, have served as an inspiration for quite a few sermons preached from the pulpit which faces it. Many of the pastors of the Church have been graduates of Spurgeon's College and visitors have sometimes queried how they managed to engineer the installation of the college motto into the building. Spurgeon's College have their own window in the foyer of their building, although we humbly think ours is much better. There is more information about Spurgeon on their website at www.spurgeons.ac.uk |
| One more story attaches to our window. Oakwood largely escaped the intensive bombing of London and other cities during the Second World War. However, only a few miles away is the industrial area of Enfield Lock which at the time housed the Royal Small Arms factory making armaments for the British Army, the standard rifle for many years was the Lee Enfield. Consequently there were many raids to the east, not all of them entirely accurate. One such raid went off course and the planes unloaded their bombs on Oakwood. A land mine fell close by (for the uninitiated this is a very big bomb, often dropped by parachute and usually designed to detonate some time after impact). A piece of shrapnel from this bomb flew straight through the window, making a hole in the palm of the hand holding the Cross but fortunately leaving the rest of the window untouched. After the war, the Church members decided that, rather than restore the window completely, the hole would be patched using clear glass. The symbolism of the pierced hand was obvious of course and they wanted a reminder of the fact that God had preserved the building, and also all of those members who had served in the armed forces during the war, from serious harm. Much later the window was restored with a piece of coloured glass but if you look closely you can still see the place where the fragment of that bomb came through it. |
| Et teneo, et teneor I both hold and am held |