Group Profile

About Us

THE GLOUCESTERSHIRE PCN GROUP normally meets monthly, on the first Saturday in each month at 2.30p.m. Our membership is denominationally mixed, and comes from Newnham, Cheltenham, Fairford and Stroud as well as Gloucester. You will be very welcome to join with us.

Venue & Meeting Times

The venue is normally Christchurch, the ecumenical church in Abbeydale on the eastern side of Gloucester near Morrisons’s supermarket. However, until further notice our meetings are via Zoom.

Group History

Having been members of open theological discussion groups in the past, Peter Stoward and Elisabeth Gerver attended the launch of the PCN in London in 2003. They then offered to try to ascertain possible interest in setting up a PCN group in Gloucestershire. PCN supplied the details of others in the area who had also expressed an interest, and we all met initially – and very tentatively - at our house in Ampney Crucis, near Cirencester.

During the early meetings, we explored together our own journeys towards open theology and our visions of what we might usefully try to do as a group. Members’ ideas for development included trying to reach out towards a wider public, forming a group where doubt could be freely expressed and examined, linking with other organisations that might provide a congenial base, and forming a discussion group to discuss selected books that represented tentative explorations of belief and ethics. Having decided to focus first on books, we read and discussed Karen Armstrong’s A History of God and Richard Holloway’s Godless Morality, amongst others.

Other Groups in South West England Region