About Us

Churches Together in Balham and Tooting expresses the commitment of local churches to work together for Christian witness and serve the community.

We're made up of 17 member churches from lots of different denominations. You may come across references to 'Churches Together in Balham and UPPER Tooting' but we're one and the same, and new members are always welcome!

Our values

ChTBT complements the work of member churches. It looks for things that can be done better by churches working together than by individual churches. It seeks to look outwards and serve the community. It helps churches support each other.

What we do

ChTBT focuses on holding a wide range of diverse and exciting events throughout the year, as well as regular meetings to to catch up and plan for the future.

A public act of witness to declare the Good Friday and Easter message to the public is a longstanding feature of ChTBT. In the past few years this has taken the form of a United Service in the community space outside Sainsbury’s in Balham, with readings, prayers and music in different traditions.

The service built on the 40 year tradition of a Silent Procession of Witness of around 200 participants from Balham Hill via ten 'stations' to Tooting Broadway. The procession was started in 1979 by Canon Charles Walker of the RC church, but ChTBT subsequently took responsibility for organising it. The procession is no longer possible because of traffic management measures introduced in Balham High Road and Upper Tooting Road.

You can watch the 2021 virtual walk here:

We're keen to find ways to serve the wider community. These are just a few or our more recent events:

'Prelude to Holy Week' concert
'Get to Know You' Coffee Mornings
Visit to Balham Mosque
Prayer sessions in person and on-line via Zoom
Cake stall at the Balham & Tooting Community Assoc. Fun Day

ChTBT creates strong relationships between local churches. This leads to mutual support and learning from each other, and has generated great events and fostered new friendships.

How we work

Meetings and events are held at regular intervals and everyone is welcome. We're always looking for new and exciting ways to inspire and nurture our faith together, so your input is important to us.

We are led by three Co-Chairs, who rotate their role. If you have any questions or ideas we'd love to hear them:

Kate Allan, Holy Trinity, Upper Tooting kateallan00@gmail.com

Susanne Mitchell, St Mary Magdalene’s smitchtree@btinternet.com

Andrew Wignal, New Testament Assembly andrew.wignal@ntatooting.org.uk

History

Churches Together in Balham and Upper Tooting (ChTBUT), as it was previously known, was formally established in 1990 after several years of informal cooperation between churches. It has regularly arranged joint services for annual events in the Christian Calendar, such as One World Week, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, and joint Lent meetings.

The Good Friday Silent Procession of Witness is an important feature of ChTBUT. It was started in 1979 by Canon Charles Walker of the RC church, but ChTBUT subsequently took responsibility for organising it.

ChTBUT was established in the 1990s. It is linked to Churches Together in South London and Churches Together in England the regional and national coordinating bodies.