A message from David Stroud, Senior Leader

After a challenging year, it’s so encouraging to look back and celebrate all that God has done in and through the church. Please join me in reflecting on just some of the highlights of the past academic year. We got off to a memorable start with the annual Christ Church London Retreat at the end of August 2019. We enjoyed wonderful times of worship, teaching and ministry and a real sense of excitement as people from each of the services gathered together in one place. 

In October we were thrilled to see the start of our sixth Christ Church London service, a Bethnal Green morning service, at The Globe Primary School, Tower Hamlets. Other highlights of the autumn term included the Everything Conference in November, and celebrating our 15th birthday at Love London Sunday. 

Our annual Gift Day in March 2020 was held just before the national lockdown, and we are deeply grateful for the remarkable generosity of the church, who have given £212,000 to date. 

The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing restrictions changed the course of our activities for the rest of the academic year. We worked quickly to take every aspect of church life online, and you will see some of the impact of our efforts reported here. 

I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to all those who have contributed to the life of the church over the previous year with their time, resources and dedication, including staff, volunteers and trustees. It is my great joy to serve alongside everyone.

Church at home

From Sunday 22nd March, all our live services were cancelled due to the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown. We responded with an online service called Church at Home, pre-recorded and available to watch on multiple platforms.

Additionally, service leaders hosted Zoom calls for people to watch the service together and have an opportunity to chat and pray. The online format also provided opportunities for everyone to hear from guest speakers Pete Greig, Eleanor Mumford, and Krish Kandiah, who recorded messages for us.

Moving online

One of the highlights of moving online were our online STEPS courses. We had 150+ registrations from our church, across the UK and further afield. We also ran our first Church leaders’ course, and had 20 groups over the year, with 140 participants. For the first time, we hosted three live pastoral seminars on different aspects of emotional health, reaching over 400 people. Our Kids team also ran Kids Zooms each Sunday across all of our services.

The Vauxhall Foodbank ran its usual café on Wednesdays and Saturdays from August until March 2020. During those eight months, it provided food to 1,726 people (Full year 2019: 2,184). London City Mission provided the venue and cooked breakfasts for clients.

In April we joined forces with two other Foodbanks in Lambeth to run a delivery service to the whole of the borough out of a warehouse in Streatham. In the period April to July we jointly delivered food parcels to 12,674 people, of whom it is anticipated 12.5% of clients were linked to the Vauxhall Foodbank. We have utilised staff and volunteers to support the increased workload. Many of our regular café volunteers were unable to keep serving due to the relocation to Streatham, but new opportunities have emerged for volunteers as delivery drivers and as part of the signposting team, who follow up on the deliveries with phone calls to offer further support. Estimated full year provision is 3,310 people (2019: 2,184).

We have also been grateful for the financial support we have received from the wider community who gave over £20,000 to our Crowdfunder appeal.

To read the full Annual Report for 2019-20 please visit christchurchlondon.org/giving. Please email [email protected] if you have any questions.