About us
Christ Church, New Malden is first and foremost a community of people seeking to worship God by serving one another and the people of New Malden. We have a lot of information on this website about our services, our mission and about regular and special events, but keep reading here for a short introduction.
Christ Church belongs to the Church of England and is the part of the Kingston Episcopal Area in the Diocese of Southwark. Our church building was first established in 1866 when the Duke of Cambridge gave the land for a church to be built for the rapidly expanding population of New Malden. As the town has grown, the church building and halls have seen successive extensions and modifications, all motivated by the desire to make our worship and mission more effective. The most recent of these was the building of a lounge and kitchen on the side of the church building in 1981, followed by the complete refurbishment of the interior of the church building in 2007, and then more recently the building of our new halls and vicarage in 2017, and a new entrance in 2018.
Christ Church has always possessed a strong evangelical flavour, placing a particular emphasis upon biblical teaching, the importance of encouraging a personal response to Jesus Christ, and supporting overseas mission. In recent years we have sought to combine these important emphases with a desire to make sure that we communicate the good news of Jesus Christ in a way that is accessible and culturally relevant to 21st century lives and share God’s love and welcome with those outside the church. Central to the latter is our Grapevine lunchclub, our group for widows called Half Shares and the various Cinema Clubs that we have developed.
Our 9.30 am service and six30@ccnm are both examples of our desire to ‘redevelop’ church in order to serve 21st century needs and requirements.
The 9.30 service is extremely trim lasting just 50-55 minutes with its most important characteristic being its ‘Sssh-free’ environment. This involves everything possible being done to allow children to be themselves and to make young families completely welcome. The recent growth at this service and the numbers of young children and newcomers attending has given us great encouragement.
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six30@ccnm now refers to a cluster of ‘new forms of church’ that we are developing on a Sunday evening. On the second and fourth Sundays of the month, ‘Sunday School for Grown Ups’ meets for input and discussion of the Bible and other theological topics. On the third Sunday of the month is ‘Sunday Screen’ when biblical or Christian films are watched and discussed. Both ‘Sunday School for Grown Ups’ and Sunday Screen have food from 6.00 pm followed by the sessions from 6.30-8.00pm. Further parts of six30@ccnm will be announced soon.
Alongside these aspects of Sunday at Christ Church, the 11.00 am service aims to provide a more formal and quieter style of worship for those who find this most helpful (see Sunday services for more details).
Another particular feature of Christ Church is our emphasis on the full ministry of women. We are convinced that this is strongly endorsed by the Bible and in recent years the ministry of two outstanding curates, Helen Hancock and Carolyn Lucas, brought the church enormous blessing. Helen and Carolyn have now moved on and are part of the Surbiton Team Ministry, but we are fortunate to be blessed with another brilliant woman, Katy Loffman, who is a lay reader at Christ Church. Our hope is that Christ Church will serve as a beacon for the full development of women’s ministry within the evangelical Anglican tradition.
Through all of these features, our consistent aim is be a church that worships God by serving one another and the people of New Malden. Our desire is to bring the love of Jesus Christ to as many people as possible in New Malden by being ‘God’s community, in the community, for the community’.