Urban Expression: East London

Urban Expression concentrated on church planting in East London in the first few years, deploying four teams in the borough of Tower Hamlets and two in the neighbouring borough of Newham. Our seventh team was deployed just south of the Thames in Kidbrooke.

Because Urban Expression is a church planting agency, with no ambition to oversee churches once they are planted, we anticipate that the churches planted by the teams we deploy will at some stage become independent of us and build relationships with other churches for mutual support. Remaining team members can transfer to our Associates' network so that they are still connected to us, or they can be redeployed to plant another church.

In November 2005 we celebrated the first such 'graduation'. The team in Newham decided that the time was right for them to become Associates and for the church that they have planted to find its own way forward. Early in 2006 we celebrated the second 'graduation' as Harvest Rock Community Church in Plaistow launched out on its own. In 2007 the Kidbrooke team ceased operations because of the way in which the community in which it was working had changed: the anticipated regeneration scheme had in effect depopulated the area and changed its demographic make-up.

During 2007, three of the teams in Tower Hamlets decided that the churches they were planting should merge and form the E1 Community Church. In November 2008 we celebrated the 'graduation' of these teams and the emergence of the new church.

This leaves us with only one team in East London. Our hope and intention is to deploy further teams in London as we are able to recruit further team members.

Below, Nick & Kerry Coke introduce the team on the Ocean Estate in Stepney.