Ricky Baxter at Kidderminster

We have visited Kidderminster - a significant landmark for anyone remotely interested in Ricky Baxter. We set off early and headed north west towards Kidderminster. This is where Ricky had his most significant pastoral ministry. He worked here for over twenty years and it was one of the happiest and most fruitful seasons of his life. Having visited Kidderminster briefly, I am glad that we were only passing through. It was market day and the town was packed and filled with market stalls, people, crowds and chaos. It was hard to find parking and then we had to find the right church linked with Ricky. After finding a place to park, we found a person who could direct us to the church we thought we wanted to visit. One delightful woman on hearing us ask for directions kindly said she would walk us to the church. She then told us that her cousin lived in Australia - in Adelaide and that they talked by phone, such a lovely chat each month.

We arrived at Baxter Church. It was covered in scaffolding and looked very locked and closed. Johnnie and I wandered around to the back and we tried a back door. We could see there were people inside, and fortunately, they saw us and came out, found a key to the church and let us in. They were very friendly, but a little bemused at our interest in Richard Baxter. We discovered the communion table from Ricky's days. It is a beautiful table, which at present is covered in renovation dust and pigeon droppings.



We then found this wonderful list on the wall of ministers of this church since Richard Baxter, which included Benjamin Fawcett who wrote one of the abridgments of "Saint's Everlasting Rest":



We then realised that there are three churches in Kidderminster with relics of Ricky's day. There is this church, which has the communion table, then there is the Unitarian church, which has the pulpit and a third church St Mary's, which has his chair and a statue of the man himself. Unfortunately, the Unitarian church was well and truly closed, so we went in search for the third church. There was a funeral in progress, so we headed into the town and discovered the public library - a treasure trove of local history books. Here they were very friendly and Keith spent some time looking at a few very old books - no gloves, supervision or anything while Johnnie and I just hung.

We decided that having come so far, we would see if the funeral was over and if we could get inside St Mary's - the church with Ricky's chair. This church has his statue outside surrounded by lavender bushes - in my opinion, they were worthy of being photographed.



A delightful couple were "on duty" in the church and welcomed us with open arms and took us straight to the chair.



We then had a good look around, and coincidently, the local "expert" on Ricky was in the church and he and Keith had a good chat about Keith's work and things to do with Ricky.

According to the man who welcomed us to the church, Richard Baxter grew this church and they had to increase the number of pews to fit the people into the church. He is obviously remembered with warmth and enthusiasm here and are proud to be associated with him.