Reach out. Build up. Send out.
A mission statement of ‘sharing the life-giving story of God with London and the world’ could seem overambitious to say the least, but with the use of a vast building in central London surrounded by people from all around the world, this Euston Church statement is wonderfully appropriate.
A group of around 40 people from St Helen’s Bishopsgate were gathered to plant a church in the Euston area in 2010. Meeting on Sunday at 5pm and midweek in the London School of Pharmacy canteen they saw steady growth in the numbers gathered together. Having no ‘flag in the ground’ as they were without their own building, friends invited friends along to the meetings.
Initial investment
In addition, they advertised at university freshers’ fairs, put up posters in the local underground stations and got involved in Christian Union groups. The expense during this initial phase proved to be worth the investment. Each of the ways they sought to show a Bible-believing church presence in the community resulted in more friends bringing friends, a move to the Institute of Education and the start of a morning service.
Initially the leadership team for the church consisted of the minister, Kev Murdoch, a student worker and a part-time women’s worker. Kev had trained at Oak Hill Theological College and St Mellitus College and had completed the Ministry Training Scheme at St Helen’s. Before becoming the vicar at Euston church, Kev worked for several years as a solicitor in London. Reflecting the way in which the church has grown, that team has now grown too. Euston Church also has five ministry trainees who are on the Student Ministry Apprenticeship Scheme and Associate Scheme at St Helen’s.
Strategically reaching all
Euston Church do not have a ‘profile’ of whom they plan to reach. Despite the huge opportunity to disciple people, mostly students, from all across the world, and their work beginning with student ministry as its focus mainly due to the locality of the plant and the age of those attending, their starting point has not limited their vision and outreach. They are working as a church in line with a biblical view of mission being for all people from everywhere of any background.
Those who were part of the initial plant were gripped by the mission of the church. They have begun to think strategically and sacrificially about where to live. (This is no small undertaking in a city where to rent a small two-bedroom flat within one mile of the church building costs £1,300 per month; to buy starts at £340,000 for a flat in a six-story block; to own a 25% share in a property specifically designed for the ‘first-time buyer’ starts at £275,000.) Some are moving a little further out and like the students and families of the area, travel in for work, leisure time and church.
Growing deeper
There is deep work to be done with individuals as they are discipled and the groups meeting each week have been at the heart of how people have grown as Christians. Studying a book over a prolonged period of time, people are taught how to really get into the Bible, understand it and be changed by what they’ve heard, through the work of the Holy Spirit. London is a crossroads for the world: the world really does come to London, so being a world missionary is possible whilst staying in the city where one works and lives.
Flag in the ground
A move to a more permanent home, the flag in the ground, took place in 2016. The building in which the church meets, The Church of Christ the King, was built between 1850 and 1854 by a little-known group called the Catholic Apostolic Church. It has a height just a few feet short of Westminster Abbey and along with the space inside, Euston Church have been able to use a flat next to the church building which is also leased to them by the same group. The trustees of the building have been godly folk who have wanted it to be used for Christian worship, and Euston Church have found the trustees good partners with whom to work.
Big vision
Over the last 18 months, the challenge for Euston Church has been having a big vision for a big building. In the lecture rooms or university café, they were used to people just wandering in. With little hope of anything much happening and with ten church families in the area on Christmas Eve 2016, they opened the doors for a service at 4pm. 150 new people walked into the building!
In the run-up to Easter, Euston Church has held some lunchtime services as part of a Lent outreach programme, as an experiment: they don’t know how it will work, but are keen to try many things in order to reach out to all those unsaved in the Euston area.
