THE CINNAMON GARDENS BAPTIST CHURCH - 194 YEARS OLD
Introduction
The Cinnamon Gardens Baptist Church (CGBC) celebrated its 194th
anniversary on Sunday the 19th of October 2003. The preacher at the
Anniversary Service was the James Kanaganayagam, Director of the
Back-to-the-Bible organization in Sri Lanka.
This
church is located in the heart of Colombo at the piazza or square where
six roads converge, variously referred to as Lipton’s Circus, De Soysa
Circus and Eye Hospital Junction (as wattuwa). These names are
appropriate enough in view of the circus-like antics of those participating in
the many demonstrations (udgoshanayas) launched by various political
parties and trade unions in the square, as well as the subsequent, desperate
rush for treatment to the Eye Hospital by demonstrators suffering from the
effects of tear gas used by the police to disperse them!
This
church building is one of the best-known landmarks in the city, not only
because most people have to pass by it almost daily to get from one part of
the city to another, but also because it provides the backdrop to newspaper
pictures and TV images of the demonstrations that take place in its vicinity.
They say that if you stand long enough in front of this church, you will see
everybody in Sri Lanka pass by at one time or another. What many people do not
know is that this church they pass nearly every day has a fascinating history
spanning 194 years and that many of the pioneers who participated in the
establishment and development of this church were well known figures in their
day.
In
1812 Rev. James Charter,
accompanied by his wife and four children, sailed into Colombo harbour
from Burma, where he had been sent by the Baptist Missionary Society to do
evangelistic work. His wife's ill health had forced him to abandon his work in
Burma and move to Ceylon where he hoped she would find the conditions more
congenial.
The
following year, 1813, Charter started preaching in English in a warehouse
somewhere in the Pettah. His audience was a small group of Christians, mainly
English soldiers and Burghers. The exact location of this warehouse is
uncertain. The Pettah was then no more than a verdant rural village. But the
street plan was much the same as we know it today and it is likely that the
warehouse was at the site of the Pettah Chapel, which was built in 1851. If
this was so, the place is on Prince Street, next to the present Post Office.
An alley called Chapel Lane is still there today.
This
little group of Christians met regularly every Sunday in the warehouse. Among
the Burghers who attended the services was Hendrick
Siers, who after his baptism took up preaching to other Burghers in Slave
Island. He was the first of many lay preachers of this church, just as James
Charter was the first of a long line of ordained pastors. However, the small
Pettah congregation was not Charter's sole charge. He had been learning
Sinhala and in 1818 he started preaching at Grandpass, founding one Sinhala
congregation there and later another one at Hanwella.
With
the initial objective of his mission accomplished, Charter handed over the
pastorate to Rev. Ebeneezer Daniel
who arrived from England in 1826 and left Colombo to preach the gospel in
country areas. Ebenezer Daniel had been minister of a Baptist Church in Luton,
Bedfordshire for 18 years before leaving for Ceylon with his wife Maria and
daughter. In his diary of that year he makes occasional comments on the Pettah
congregation. For example:
(b)
September 16 - Preached in the Pettah in English from Psalm 27:5. It
was a wet evening; the people here are afraid of rain; therefore the
congregation was small.
But
by this time, the church was well established, though still quite small. It
met for worship every Sunday morning and evening. The evening congregation was
always the larger one and was made up entirely of Europeans and Burghers in
about equal proportions. It was English speaking and remained so for almost a
century. Only an occasional Sinhala name appears in the membership list. A
small Sunday School was begun by Maria Daniel and her daughter. The Charters
returned to England in December1828, Rev. James Charter himself dying on board
ship on the way.
A
number of pastors followed Ebenezer Daniel, after his resignation to do
evangelistic work in the countryside. It is interesting to note that many of
the Baptist missionaries spent the first few years of their stay in Colombo
until they had gained a knowledge of Sinhala and then moved to outstation
areas. The Baptist Church still has the practice of rotating its pastors among
the churches in different parts of the country. One Sunday evening, Rev.
Ebenezer Daniel was preaching when he was taken ill. He died the next Sunday.
Large crowds of Christians and non-Christians attended his funeral. His wife
then sailed for England but she herself died at sea. There seems to have been
a high mortality rate among missionaries in those days. Among other pastors
who served the church during this period, Jacob Davies and James
Allen made noteworthy contributions.
In
1950, it was felt that the membership of the church was unsatisfactory and
drastic measures were called for. It was therefore decided to annul the
membership and "reconstitute" the Church with those holding
"the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel" to form the Baptised
Church of Jesus Christ. The initial membership of the reconstituted church
comprised sixteen people. James Allen was elected as Elder. The number of
members steadily increased. In addition to the two regular Sunday services, a
meeting was held on Monday evenings for prayer and Bible study. The enrolment
at the Sunday School grew to 60 persons. The church also started a fund to
build a proper place of worship. The new chapel was built in Prince Street and
opened in 1851 with a membership of 37.
The Chapel in the Pettah (1851 - 1877)
The
church, which gathered in the new Prince Street Chapel under the pastorship of
Rev. James Allen, was forward-looking and attracted many good leaders.
Noteworthy among these were:
·
Christopher
Elliott
M.D., who later became Principal
Civil Medical Officer;
·
A.
M. Ferguson C.M.G., first Editor of the Ceylon Observer and a deacon of the church for 32
years; the existing Ferguson Hall was built in his memory;
·
John
Ferguson C.M.G., nephew of A.M. Ferguson, who helped his uncle with the Ceylon Observer
and later also became its Editor, took great interest in the Sunday School and
in evangelism. He was also instrumental in getting the railway exetended. The
Mannar line and ferry link to Dhanushkodi in S. India were the results of his
efforts.
In
1866 Rev. James Allen died after serving the church for 17 years. Rev.
H.R. Piggot and Rev. F.D. Waldock
were joint pastors of the church until 1874. Mr. P.D. de Silva was
elected a deacon, the first Ceylonese name appearing in the church records. In
that year, thanks to the generous support of G.B. Leechman and the Fergusons, the church became financially
independent and self-supporting.
Rev.
T.R. Stevenson arrived from England in 1874 to take charge of the pastorate of the
church at this turning point in its history. The Pettah, which was originally
in a pleasant rural setting, was rapidly transforming into the noisy
honky-tonk commercial centre that we know today. Many of the church members
were moving to quieter localities three or four miles away. It was therefore
decided to move the church to a site nearer their homes and in 1875 a plot of
land was found in the solitude of Cinnamon Gardens. This sounds amusing now,
when preachers have to shout to make themselves heard above the noise of the
traffic, but old photographs of the present building indicate how secluded it
was, surrounded by gardens full of large trees. The land was bought from the
government for Rs. 4,181 and the foundation stone laid on 4 April 1876.
Rev.
F.D. Waldock
is mentioned as the architect. He must have been a man with many talents and
prodigious energy to care for the flock, open new schools and design churches.
The church was completed the following year 1877 at a cost of Rs. 22,126.
There are no accounts of any opening ceremony or dedication service. The
Pettah Chapel was retained for a number of years but it is not known for what
purpose it was used. The Asiatic Trading Agency now occupies the chapel
building.
Cinnamon Gardens was a fast-growing residential suburb of
Colombo and housed many important officials and businessmen. With its wide
tree-lined roads it became the most fashionable area of Colombo to live in and
was home to a great number of English families as well as to many educated and
affluent Ceylonese families. The congregation was drawn largely from the
English speaking population of Cinnamon Gardens and naturally the language of
the church services remained exclusively English until a few decades ago, when
a Sinhala and Tamil service was formally introduced. However, in the 1870s a group calling itself the Sinahalese
Baptist Church had been conducting regular worship services in Sinhala at
the Pettah Church, with the permission of the pastor. They moved with the
church when it shifted to Cinnamon Gardens. They are thought to have been
converts from Grandpass and were pastored by Rev. James Silva, but
their existence was hardly noticed by most church members even after
worshipping under the same roof for almost a century!
Rev.
T. R. Stevenson returned to England in 1881 and the church went through a
period of six years during which two gifted laymen, one a civil servant and
the other an army man, were responsible for its pastoral oversight, doing an
excellent job. In 1887, Rev F. Durbin
of the famous Spurgeon's College in England arrived to take over the
pastorate. The Manse was built in 1891 to house the Pastor on the premises and
the architect was once again Waldock. Rev. Durbin had a successful ministry of
six years and was succeeded by Rev. T.
I. Stockley from 1893 to 1899. He was responsible for breaking new ground
in evangelistic work, first at Mabodala and later at Alutgama, where the
little church built at that time may still be seen. Ferguson Hall was built in
1896 in memory of A. M. Ferguson from a donation by his family, to house the
growing Sunday School. This hall still serves the Sunday School and is used
for functions and social activities of the church as well. By the turn of the
century, when Stockley left for England, the membership of the congregation
had risen to 201.
Rev.
W. R. Peacock arrived from England in 1900 and served as pastor of the church for ten
years. Rev. R. O. Price (1910 -
1913) was forced to return to England due to illness. Rev. E. B. Woods (1913 - 1916) replaced him.
These were very eventful times for the church. The Christian
Endeavour Society (CE) was founded in 1910 as the church's youth movement.
It was very active until the late nineties, but went into a state of dormancy
for some years, until its revivification last year. In keeping with common
Baptist practice elsewhere, the church changed from having a Church Committee
to a Diaconate as its main decision making body. The first deacons of the
church elected in 1913 were J. Ferguson, G. B. Leechman, Peter
de Silva, Ronald Ferguson, J. L. Fonseka, W. Geddes
and Samuel Van Hoff. An organ was donated to the church by Mrs. R.
F. Raymond. With Mervyn Fonseka as organist and H. M. Richards
and Charles Pate a choir leaders, the choir developed into a very good
one and remained so for a number of years.
Rev.
H. J. Charter served the church as interim pastor during the First World War and
after, till 1920. After the war ended, the church invited Rev. Fred Bennet to come down from England to take over the
pastorate. The ministry of Fred Bennet and his wife was greatly appreciated by
the parishioners and they were requested to return for a second term. They
finally left in 1930. During this period, the congregation subscribed Rs.
16,000 to buy a superb pipe organ that matched the acoustics of the church
perfectly. Mervyn Fonseka, who was
also the organist, led the choir, which was reputed to be one of the best in
the country at that time. Many members of today's congregation will remember
this beautiful organ. It was donated to another church only a few years ago,
as the Cinnamon Gardens Baptist Church did not have the funds to carry out a
comprehensive overhaul of the instrument, which was found to be necessary. In
1930 Rev. Fred Bennet resigned and the church invited Rev. G. H. P. Leembruggen a converted Presbyterian minister to the
pastorate. He was the pastor of the church from 1931 to 1939. The first
edition of the Newsletter appeared in 1932.
A
member of the church who did outstanding service to the community during this
period was Dr. Mary Rutnam who died in 1962. Her service was mostly
outside the church, particularly among village women. She came to Ceylon in
1898 and married Dr. Rutnam shortly thereafter. She trained the first women
doctors in Ceylon, a great need since Moslem women could not be examined by
men doctors at that time. She started two maternity hospitals in Colombo and
went on village lecture tours instructing village women in child welfare and
maternity. She also started several schools for poor children and a movement,
better known as the Mahila Samitya, to teach village women home industries and
better crop production methods. She did not have the time or the inclination
to preach sermons, letting her life be a witness to her deeply held Christian
values. Some members of our church still remember her with affection, as did
the late Sirimavo Bandaranaike, who was among the people who stood at
her burial in the pouring rain.
The
Second World War and After (1939 – 1963)
The
Second World War began quietly enough for Ceylon but with Pearl Harbour and
the Japanese menace Ceylon became an important centre for operations of the
Allied Armed Forces. They were stationed all over the island including Colombo
itself. They certainly “invaded” the Cinnamon Gardens Baptist Church, an
invasion nobody – neither the visitors nor the hosts – will forget. It
gave members of the church many opportunities to exercise Christian
hospitality and many in the armed forces took back happy memories of the
fellowship and hospitality they
had enjoyed both in the church and in the homes of church members. A canteen
that was run in the Ferguson Hall was greatly appreciated. The young forces
personnel flooded the church and took the Christian Endeavour movement by
storm. They swelled the choir and occupied the pulpit; lay preachers such as
Wallace, Wood, Lieut. Lawrence Brown and others are still remembered. Of
course all this had to come to an end when the war ended; the forces returned
to England and our Church returned to a state of rather empty normalcy.
Besides being suddenly brought down to earth by the departure of these
enthusiastic military personnel, other more gradual changes were taking place
in the nature of the church as well. Although its congregation remained
English speaking, it was no longer a church for Europeans and Burghers. The
majority of the congregation now comprised English speaking Sinhalese and
Tamils. This transformation had been going on since the beginning of the
century, but became more evident as more and more Europeans (and Burghers)
left the country after the war and following Independence. Although the
membership now represented a better cross-section of the educated population,
it remained quite exclusive, as the uneducated rural population had not yet
been reached. This held true also for the other Protestant churches in Ceylon
as well.
In
1940, Rev. J. B. Bradley who was Field Secretary of the Baptist Missionary
Society accepted a call to be the Minister of CGBC but unfortunately died
before long, in 1942. Thereafter, Rev.
H. J. Charter served until the end of the war. A number of ministers
served in the post-war period up to December 1947, when Rev.Charles Bullock came in
as pastor
until 1949 when he had to leave owing to his wife’s ill-heath in 1949. Rev.Collin
Weller commenced his ministry in December of the same year. He gave strong
spiritual leadership to the congregation and was a very wise pastor. It is
perhaps for this pastoral care for the flock, through prayer and guidance
given in the homes of the people, that he was most deeply valued. He organized
prayer groups in the homes of members and directed two citywide missions. He
revived and re-invigorated the Christian Endeavour movement and got a number
of young people trained as lay preachers. His inability to accept a second
five-year term as pastor was greatly regretted by the church.
In
1953, Ms. Winifred Kariapperuma (nee Turney) came to the Island as a
Missionary and was later appointed as Field Secretary of the Baptist
Missionary Society in Ceylon. She held the positions of Deacon and Treasurer
in the church for many years. She has been, and still is, a great source of
strength and encouragement to the Cinnamon Gardens Baptist Church. The present
constitution of the church owes itself largely to her efforts.
Rev.
Reginald Croshaw was called to the pastorate in 1955 but was unable to complete his full
term. He resigned and returned to England in 1957. In April 1959 Rev.
Eric Sutton-Smith accepted the call to the pastorate and arrived in Ceylon
in November of that year as a missionary of the B.M.S. He had already served
in China, the land of his birth. He had undergone many hardships there,
including imprisonment for his beliefs, after the Communist government came to
power. He was an outstanding pastor and being a bachelor was able to devote
most of his time and energies to church activities. Rev. George and Betsy
Lee assisted him from time to time. Eric Sutton-Smith was a real blessing
to the church and was unanimously invited by the church membership to accept a
second term of five years.
In 1965, Rev. Eric Sutton-Smith commenced his second pastorate, which
lasted until 1970. He subsequently came back for a shorter third term from
1971 to 1974. His was the longest
pastorate in the CGBC in the twentieth century. He was greatly loved and
respected by all those who came in contact with him. He was also a great
evangelist, taking the message to the people of the area through open-air
dramatic programmes not only in the garden of the Cinnamon Gardens Baptist
Church, but also in the environs of rural churches, hospitals and prisons. He
also introduced the Wayside Pulpit, sermons illustrated with his own drawings,
and a unique Harvest Service based on the Mahaweli Development Project. Rev.
Eric Sutton Smith went on to pastor the Kandy Baptist Church for a while and
then returned to England, where he passed away not long after. The Sutton-Smith
Memorial Chapel was dedicated to his memory.
Rev.
A. H. Swanson
was inducted as Pastor of CGBC in 1975 and continued till 1979, when he
returned to Scotland, where he still resides. In January 1980, Rev. Peter
M. Goodall commenced his ministry, which lasted seven years. During this
time, much emphasis was placed on using the media, with telecasts of Easter
services from the church, as well as studio services. Independence Day
services with the hoisting of the national flag, celebration of the
Sinhala-Tamil New Year with special cultural activities, May Day services with
a procession and dedication of workers, and out-door Nativity scenes with
illuminations were other features of this period. With a widely scattered
membership, pastors were finding it difficult to visit the homes of church
members regularly and various schemes were tried out to fill this gap. During
Rev. Goodall’s pastorate, area house groups were formed and later, the
auxiliaries held house meetings.
For
the first time since its establishment, the CGBC got a Sri Lankan pastor when Rev.
Kingsley Perera was appointed to the position in 1988. He continued as
pastor until 1997. In view of the growing Sinhala-Tamil congregation and the
need for evangelical work to be conducted in the local languages, the
appointment of a local Pastor was very timely.
He instituted the concept of a Team Ministry in which Deacons,
Committee Members and elders of the church took over part of the
responsibilities of pastoral visits. During his tenure, work on the new
building for the Dev Piya Sevana Community Service Centre (DPS) was completed.
It has facilities for vocational training, English teaching, a restaurant for
the supply of cheap, wholesome meals to less-well-off people in the vicinity,
and overnight accommodation for immediate family members of poor patients
visiting them in the General Hospital nearby. The community service activities
of the church, such as feeding the poor and providing schoolbooks and
stationery to needy children, also grew during that period. When Rev. Kingsley
Perera was transferred, the church ran itself with the assistance of Rev.
Peter Goodall, who had been recalled to Sri Lanka by the SLBS as Moderator.
The
present pastor of the church, Rev. Heshan de Silva took over the
pastorate in 1999. In recent years, the Sinhala-Tamil congregation has grown
in strength while the English language congregation has got depleted, mainly
due to the exodus of young people for study and employment abroad.
Consequently, more emphasis has been placed on uniting the two congregations
in as many activities as possible, including joint tri-lingual services on
important occasions, church camps, and activities of the auxiliaries such as
the Women’s Fellowship, the Men’s Fellowship, the Young Adults, CE and the
Youth Groups.
Although
the building of the Cinnamon Gardens Baptist Church is a historical landmark
of great value and is worth preserving, the church itself is much more than a
mere building. The church is the gathering of God’s people. The CGBC
continues to go from strength to strength and is now engaged in increasing its
outreach activities by helping the evangelical efforts of churches in the
outstations. With God, nothing is impossible and we look forward to the next
10 years with great hope and the anticipation of serving Him in the great
traditions laid down by the early leaders of the church.
