Over 10,000 sign petition in support of church fighting outreach ban

Over 10,000 people have signed a petition calling on Colchester City Council to retract a Community Protection Notice (CPN) against Bread of Life Community Church.

The CPN bans the church and its members from its long-standing practice of publicly preaching in town centre. The church says it never received any complaints until local officials began putting pressure on the church last 12 months.

Initially officials are alleged to have asked church members to show down or turn off their amplification, despite there being no ban on amplified sound in the world concerned. Later nevertheless, officials are alleged to have began complaining in regards to the content of the message being preached, particularly references to hell.

The CPN accuses the church of preaching a message that causes “harassment, alarm and distress”. The preaching can be described as “unreasonable” and as having a “detrimental effect on the community”.

A petition began by Christian Concern, which is supporting the church, asks the council to withdraw its CPN and to guard freedom of speech and religion and the appropriate of churches to peacefully share the gospel.

Christian Concern has said that use of the CPN is “unprecedented” because it targets the entire church and all of its members. Typically such measures are used to limit the actions of people.

At time of writing the petition has been signed by over 10,600 people and states: “Bread of Life Community Church has been sharing the Christian message in public. This isn’t because they’re behaving inappropriately – they record and livestream all their outreach and no evidence of harassment has been shown.”

“They are being suppressed due to the content of their message – the life-giving gospel that Christians have preached on UK streets for hundreds of years. Please retract your Community Protection Notice against Bread of Life Community Church, recognising the freedoms of speech and religion that they’re exercising.”

Colchester City Council said it might not be appropriate to comment as legal proceedings are lively.

Bread of Life Church shared a photograph on its Facebook page of Pastor Stephen Clayden meeting Nigel Farage. The church said the pair discussed “Jesus, evangelism, and the Bible”.

“Bread of Life Community Church is grateful for his support,” the post said.