Our Mission Locally

Our Mission Locally

Our Mission locally is expressed through…

Our Church Services: These seek to offer a variety of different styles for different needs and aim to be as inclusive as possible. Our 9.30 ‘Sssh-Free service’ and its children’s groups particularly seek to reach new children and young families with the love of God but our hope is that all our services will increasingly be shaped by this missionary impulse.

Christ Church Primary School: Founded and partly funded by Christ Church and St John’s, our school seeks to provide a distinctively Christian ethos and educational experience for both its pupils and staff. There are very close links between the churches and school, including weekly assemblies taken by the clergy of Christ Church and St John’s. End of term services at Christ Church reinforce this ethos.

Inclusive Church Groups: These seek to welcome and incorporate new members alongside those who already belong to Christ Church. Groups with a particular emphasis on welcoming newcomers include Connections, Women’s Own, Half Shares, Men at Home and our several ‘interest groups’.

The Alpha Course: Christ Church runs Alpha courses on a regular basis encouraging both newcomers and those outside the church explore the Christian faith. Based around a meal, a talk and then open discussion in groups, the Alpha course has helped many of us to come to faith or deepen our existing faith.

The Grapevine: Run by Sarah Parker and Camilla Pearse, the Grapevine is a free lunch that takes place at 1.00 pm at Christ Church on the first Sunday of every month. Welcoming those on the margins, the Grapevine seeks to help people find community and make good friendships.

The Night Shelter: Organised by Kingston Church’s Action on Homelessness in partnership with local churches, the Night Shelter offers a meal and bed for the night to people who are homeless between December and March. Christ Church hosts this shelter on Thursday evenings to Friday mornings in December and January and this is again organised by Sarah Parker and Camilla Pearse.

External Youth Work: Christ Church is a very strong supporter of the Oxygen Youth Project and its work of meeting young people within the borough of Kingston with the love of Jesus Christ. This support is expressed both financially and through the close involvement of members of Christ Church in its running. In recent times Oxygen has sought to empower the local churches more in this regard helping Christ Church to appoint Nathan Larkin as our first External Youth Worker in 2008. Nathan’s work is primarily focused on helping young people outside the church through projects such as ‘Room 1’ at Coombe Boys School and our ‘Urban Nites’ programme.

Funeral Ministry: Another important part of our mission locally is the taking of funerals by our clergy, who seek to share God’s love and the church’s support and care to those who are bereaved.

Hosting Community Groups: As part of our service to the community we make our buildings available to non-church community groups. Among the groups that regularly hire our buildingsat present are the Library Circle, the Blind Club and a choir run by ‘The University of the Third Age’. Our buildings are also used by several schools, especially at Christmas for their Carol Services. We see this as an important part of our mission.