At the age of 20, Charles Spurgeon came to New Park Street Chapel from his first pastorate at a small Baptist church in Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire. This congregation had continuously met since 1650, beginning in the Tower Bridge area and continuing in the proximity until they built the church at New Park Street in 1833—at the rear of the Borough Market.
The New Park Street Chapel was a Reformed Baptist church in Southwark in London built in 1833. The fellowship began worshipping together in 1650. Its first pastor was William Rider, and many notable others have filled the position since, including Benjamin Keach, Dr. John Gill, Dr. John Rippon, and C. H. Spurgeon. In 1861, the church moved to Elephant and Castle and was renamed Metropolitan Tabernacle.
In April 1854, after preaching three months on probation and just four years after his conversion, Spurgeon, then only 19 years old, was called to the pastorate of London’s famed New Park Street Chapel in Southwark (formerly pastored by the Particular Baptists Benjamin Keach, and theologian John Gill). This was the largest Baptist congregation in London at the time, although it had dwindled in numbers for several years. Spurgeon found friends in London among his fellow pastors, such as William Garrett Lewis of Westballs Grove Church, an older man who along with Spurgeon went on to found the London Baptist Association.
Tennessee Baptist Sat, Nov 29, 1856
“Mr. Moore gave an interesting account of Mr. Spurgeon’s connection with the church, and announced that he had a great secret to communicate, which was, that a gentleman had promised £2,000 on condition that a new site should be selected, and that the new building should not be a mere enlargement of the New Park Street Chapel. He stated that they had 1,200 at their prayer meetings, and that thirty or forty communicants were added to their numbers every month, till their communicants now numbered nearly nine hundred—a statement which was received with loud applause. Mr. Moore gave an interesting account also of the efforts they had made as a church, to promote the education of the poor in the locality, but for all these details we have not space.”
