The congregation of St Faith's Church in Maidstone have left their historic building.

From now on, they will be meeting in The Flowerpot pub in Sandling Road while they wait for their new community centre to be completed.

Sunday services will be held on the first and third Sunday at The Flower Pot, and in the months when there is a fifth Sunday, the service will be at the Kenward Trust in Yalding.

Other services will vary, and details should be checked on the church's Facebook page.

Nigel Downes, a member of the Parochial Church Council, said: "After years of planning, we are looking forward to moving into our new community centre which is being built at Ringlestone. It should be completed by the end of this year."

However, Christian service will continue at St Faith's. The building has been sold to The Lighthouse Church movement, a new multi-cultural pentecostal church.

Mr Downes said: "With the sale of the church, it’s hard to take on board how momentous this occasion is."

He said: "After so much time and effort the sale has been achieved.

"It has been the wish of the congregation that the church should continue to be a place of Christian worship.

"We are therefore thrilled that the building will still be used for the work of the Lord and we pray the Lord’s blessing on Lighthouse Church as they take over."

The new St Faith's Community Centre, which will be used not just for services but for a range of community benefits, is under construction on the site of the old church hall two and half miles away on the corner of Chatham Road and Moncktons Lane.

The project is being managed by the charity the Ringlestone Community Centre Development Group which was set up in 2013 and has been working towards this aim for the past nine years.

The new building is costing £1.6m and is being financed using £465,000 from housing developers through Section 106 contributions, £120,000 from grant-funding bodies, £150,000 raised by the congregation and with the rest from the sale of the St Faith's Church and its old vicarage.

The new building will include a main hall to accommodate 110 people, a smaller hall, meeting rooms, a cafe and garden area.

The temporary move of St Faith's to a pub is not the first time worship has been held in some unexpected places.

In 2017, the congregation of the St John the Divine in Chatham silmilarly found istelf homesless while awaiting for their new building to be ready.

Their response was to move into the Tap n Tin nightclub in Railway Street. Every weekend, after the club's Saturday night revellers moved out, the congregation would move in for Sunday prayers.

In 2013, the Kingsway International Christian Centre moved into the former Scout Centre at Buckmore Park off Maidstone Rad, Chatham.

The centre, which included an indoor swimming pool, had been closed since 2007. It was renamed Prayer City by the pentacostal church's founder Nigerian pastor Matthew Ashimolowo.