London

Teams currently in London

Ocean Estate, Stepney
The Ocean Estate team is led by Salvation Army officers Nick & Kerry Coke.  Together with Pete & Ruthy Burgess they have been in Stepney since 1999 pioneering the ministry of Hope Asha.  You can read more about some of the initiatives they have been involved in here.  www.hopeasha.org.uk

Harold Hill
The Harold Hill team began when Rich & Alison Shorter moved into the estate in August 2009.  They were joined the following month by Steve & Lauren Tinning and in March 2011 Emma Stone joined the team.  Rich is a baptist minister and Ali is a teacher by profession but is being kept busy with their three young children!  Steve is a student baptist minister placed with Urban Expression while he studies at Spurgeon’s College and Lauren is a physiotherapist. Emma is looking to combine an itinerant children's ministry with local work with families. Watch the video interview

Opportunities in London
The Harold Hill team are still looking for additional team members to join this exciting venture in this outer-city estate.
Hope Asha could soon be graduating from Urban Expression but for those living in Tower Hamlets there is a great opportunity to still be involved with this dynamic, community-based, multi-cultural expression of church with a reputation of serving the community and seeking peace and justice.  For more info visit www.hopeasha.org.uk

More about Urban Expression in London
Urban Expression began in London in 1997.  The Harold Hill team is our eighth team since then.  Urban Expression continues to look for team leaders to initiate and help form further teams in some of the least churched and most marginalised communities of our Capital. 

Interested in joining one of our London teams?  Or maybe leading a new one?

For further details, contact us at:
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Glasgow

We do not currently have any teams in Glasgow. Between 2007 and 2011 there was a team of eight in Possilpark, who planted Clay Community Church (www.claychurch.org.uk), a member of the Scottish Network of Churches.

Opportunities in GlasgowWe are looking for team leaders and team members to form new teams in under-churched locations in the most deprived areas of Glasgow.  For more information contact the steering group via our contact form. The steering group is actively seeking to build relationships with Christian groups and churches interested in partnering with us in urban mission.

Download
"A New Glasgow" - a poem, written by Doug Gay, which captures something of the essence of the vision for a renewed city.

Birmingham

Teams currently in Birmingham

Shard End
Urban Expression in Birmingham began in September 2009, with a quiet start in Shard End, North East Birmingham.

The team of 5, all live, work, pray, eat and share together on this outer city housing estate. Conversations, celebrations, and caring for our neighbours form the basis of our development as we seek to serve, seek and follow Christ in Shard End.

The team are in the early days of relationship building by listening to God and the community. We’d welcome your prayers and invite you to join us on Tuesday evenings as we eat, discuss the Bible and chat with those beginning on their faith journey.

For further details, contact Jo Fitzsimmons at

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Opportunities in Birmingham

Bristol

Bristol Background

Teams currently in Bristol

Knowle West

In response to the missional challenge Urban Expression agreed that we should start working in Bristol and in autumn 2009 we started working on setting up two steering groups in the city – one to focus on the multicultural East of the city and the other to focus on the mainly white estates in the south. These steering groups will be getting to grips with the challenge throughout 2010 with a view to starting teams in the autumn.

More about Urban Expression in Bristol

Bristol is, like many cities, a divided city; the River Avon divides it North / South and the M32 motorway splits off the East section of the city – the wealth being concentrated mainly in the North. Also typical is the large area of deprivation (lowest 10% on the national multiple deprivation indicator scale). The contrast between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ is particularly marked in Bristol because it is one of Britain’s wealthiest cities, having the highest average personal income outside of London. Bristol’s urban deprivation typically exists in two kinds of areas: multicultural inner city areas and majority white estates built as slum clearances in the 30’s and 50’s. In both these the denominational churches have suffered serious and long term decline; the very existence of the denominational churches in white estates is now in question.

Dynamic Partnerships in Bristol

The mission challenge in Bristol is very significant. However it seems that the Spirit is moving and in some senses we are running to keep up. Creative working relationships exist already between denominations, especially Anglican and Baptist with the exiting involvement of both the Baptist and Anglican colleges in the city: both of them are very involved in mission in Bristol and developing new ways of training people to be involved incarnational mission and church planting in some of the most challenging areas. The Baptist college has formed a partnership with UE locally so that we can bring together the strengths of the college with the church planting energy and expertise of UE.

Opportunities

We are praying for people of all kinds with a passion for Jesus and a heart for urban church planting to get involved. Opportunities exist in both white estates and multicultural urban areas to join teams and incarnational communities which are associated with UE. In south Bristol, on the Knowle West estate a small community started in Sept 09 and is a very exciting incarnational expression of church based around a weekly Sabbath meal and a journey of exploring and living out convictions such as simplicity, prayer, hospitality, attentiveness … In East Bristol there seems to be a steady trickle of people over the last few years moving to the area with a vision for living in incarnational community. Opportunities also exist for those wishing to be involved in bi-vocational approaches to ministry and mission or for those who are seeking accredited ministerial training but want to be able to do it ‘out of the box’. To find out more about these opportunities or more about the Bristol scene, contact Mike Pears on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Our mission partners in Bristol include: Re:Source www.resourcebristol.org/ West of England Baptist Association www.webassoc.org.uk/ Bristol Baptist College www.bristol-baptist.ac.uk/

Stoke-on-Trent

Teams currently in Stoke-on-Trent

Stoke

Stoke on Trent is a city of about 250,000, world famous for centuries as a centre for the production of beautiful pottery; Wedgwood, Royal Doulton, Spode, Portmerion and Moorcroft are all Stoke on Trent firms. Much of that industry has now died or gone abroad and Stoke is now in the bottom 15 of the ‘UK cities rich list’. On a positive note Stoke was rated the friendliest city in the UK in a poll by Sheffield University.

There are two UE teams working in Stoke on Trent, one in the south of the city and one in the north.

The North of the City – Cobridge

Cobridge used to be quite a posh area (the Victorian novelist Arnold Bennett used to live just over the road from us) but it is now one of the poorest areas of the city. There is about a 50% minority ethnic population, the majority of whom are Pakistani Muslims.

The Cobridge UE team started in September 2009 when Howard and Iona Jones moved up from Birmingham. Howard is a Baptist minister and Iona is an equality and diversity consultant. So far our aims have been quite simple ...

• Settle into the neighbourhood and get to know people
• Get involved with and serve some of the organisations around Cobridge
• Think, pray, imagine, plan, prayer walk and listen to God

In April 2010 we organised a community picnic in the local park as our first real 'project'. This was a great success and over 200 people came to it. Another event is being planned for August.

Howard and Iona are encouraged and still excited to be here, but currently very aware of the need to expand the team. In 2011 Richard & Cath Wakefield joined the team and will shortly be moving into the community.

The South of the City – Stoke Town

Like the rest of the city, Stoke Town has its share of all the problems relating to economic and social deprivation – it particularly scores quite badly in terms of poor living environment.  The town centre has seen many of the shops close and businesses wind up and looks quite run down. The housing is mostly Victorian terraces with some semi-detached properties, and is a mix of social and privately owned housing a lot of which is rented. We have several pubs and cafés too, which tend to be traditional – white-sliced only!

UE Stoke grew out of a friendship between Liz Perry and Marg Hardcastle who both joined the community association committee at the same time.  During 2009 Liz, Marg, and Liz’s husband, Steve, talked about their hope to offer people something alternative to ‘traditional church’, noting the number of local people who’d never go near a church normally.

Marg and Liz put their main energy ‘UE-wise’ into the community association work seeing this as a way of sharing the kingdom of God with local people. Steve’s time is mostly occupied by developing a family-friendly internet radio station called Access Radio. Marg and Liz are now quite well known in the local community and through the community association have also established a positive reputation with the local council and other organisations who work in the area.

Our activities are mainly located around our ‘Urban Village Green’ – with community centre, playing field, community garden, chapel and the pub nearby – we all live just a few minutes’ walk from this area. Although we have only been ‘doing UE’ since September 2009, we have been organising community events for a couple of years and become involved in other local projects:

Sunday Fundays– involving bouncy castles, live music, games, quizzes, a café etc. –  we organised 2 in 2009 and have 3 planned for 2010

Community Garden – working with the local council and housing association we have created a small community garden outside our community centre which our gardening group maintains

Community Centre – we have enabled some upgrade work to be done to the centre

Marg is a member of the Stoke Town Regeneration Board

Liz is involved in the local Fair Trade movement.

Opportunities in Stoke-on-Trent

For further details, contact us at

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Manchester

Teams currently in Manchester

Newton Heath
You can read about the work of the Urban Expression team in Newton Heath on their website www.livingstonesnewtonheath.org.uk.  The team began in 2005 and is led by Hannah Batchelor.

Levenshulme
Ian Spence is the part-time minister at Levenshulme Baptist Church (www.levenshulme.org) and together with his wife Rachel, a student Baptist minister, and Jean Bernard, has been developing a ministry alongside the established congregation to connect with those who have rarely experience traditional church.  They have been working together since 2006.

Victoria Park
Gary Serra Di Migni is a baptist minister who left a successful established church ministry in order to explore ways to connect with those who never naturally connect with church.  Along with his wife Chris and Elaine Stambridge they are getting to know many people, learning to share their lives and taking opportunities to listen to and share faith stories along the way.  They have been in Victoria Park since 2008.

Opportunities in Manchester
Each of the three teams are looking for extra volunteers to assist them in a variety of ways. 
In Newton Heath they are especially looking for some volunteer youth workers to help with a girls club on the estate. 

 In Victoria Park they have had student ministers work alongside them for short periods of time and would like to explore longer term opportunities for this, so if you are a student minister do get in touch!

If you are interested in finding out about any opportunities to work alongside this teams please get in touch with Angie Tunstall.

More about Urban Expression in Manchester

Urban Expression in Manchester was established in 2005 with the first team in Newton Heathled by Hannah Batchelor. In 2006 Ian and Rachel Spence began work alongside pastoring Levenshulme Baptist Church. In August 2008 Gary Serra di Migni moved into Victoria Park to initiate a new team there. See the individual team pages for more details.

The Manchester Steering Group was formed in 2007. The group consists of people involved in various ministries around Manchester and offers a great resource to the teams here. The members are:

• Trevor Hutton: Nazarene Theological College
• Glen Marshall: Tutor in mission studies at Northern Baptist College
• Louise Kenyon: Lecturer in Youth Ministry, Nazarene Theological College
• Angie Tunstall: Synergy
• George Carter: Magistrate, Urban Presence trustee and lifetime resident of inner city Manchester

Recruitment
We are looking for team members to join us in Manchester. The most pressing need currently is in Newton Heath where we are looking for youth workers and an evangelist.  Please get in touch if you want to come and visit and find out more.

Manchester Firsts
Mancunians are quite proud of their city. Here is a compilation of some of things that make us proud! Taken from Manchester City Council's website.

Manchester has long been a city to pave the way with the wealth of innovations, economy and ideas of society it has produced over the decades. From the city that split the atom, created the programmable computer and produced countless musical movements, Manchester is a city to be admired and replicated; not just in the UK but worldwide.

• 1653 The nation's first free public library opened, founded using money donated by wealthy Mancunian Humphrey Chetham.
• 1761 The Bridgewater Canal opened- the first totally artificial waterway independent of natural rivers.
• 1773 The first steamboats operated on the Bridgewater Canal.
• 1783 Richard Arkwright set up the first mill to use steam power on Miller Street in the city centre, paving the way for mass production techniques.
• 1803 John Dalton's atomic theory was the forerunner of all modern medicine.
• 1805 The first gas street lighting illuminated part of Chapel Street in Salford, along with the Philips and Lee factory.
• 1815 Vegetarianism began, inspired by the sermons of the Reverend William Cowherd at the Salford Bible Christian church.
• 1824 The first bus route ran from Market Street in Manchester to Salford.
• 1825 Glasgow born, Manchester mill owner Charles Mackintosh took out a patent for a practical waterproof fabric.
• 1830 The world's first true railways started operating from a purpose built station on Liverpool Road.
• 1842 The world's first commuter towns developed along the railway routes of southern Manchester at places such as Alderly Edge and Sale.
• 1846 Philips Park, Queens Park and Peel Park became the city's first parks.
• 1850 Manchester led the way in providing its citizens a supply of fresh, pure water when it opened Longdale Reservoirs.
• 1853 John Benjamin Dancer, working from 43 Cross Street, invented microphotography and microfilms.
• 1857 The first international art exhibition was held in Manchester.
• 1858 The Halle Orchestra became the first professional permanent orchestra, set up by German conductor Charles Halle.
• 1868 The first general meeting of the Trade Union Congress took place in the Three Crowns pub in Salford.
• 1880 The first mechanically powered submarine was launched to the designs of eccentric Hulme curate, the Reverend George Garrett.
• 1888 The first professional football league was set up in the Royal Hotel, Manchester.
• 1892 A predecessor of New Labour, the Independent Labour Party was formed in Manchester- its first MP was Keir Hardie.
• 1893 The first and only swing aqueduct in the world was built at Barton- it carries the Bridgewater Canal over the Ship Canal.
• 1894 Despite having a market stall in Leeds, Marks and Spencer opened its first store on Stretford Road in Hulme.
• 1896 The first purpose built industrial estate was created at Trafford Park.
• 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Women's Social and Political Union in her home, which still stands on Nelson Street. The aim of the organisation was to recruit working class women into the struggle for the vote.
• 1904 Frederick Royce met Charles Rolls in the Midland Hotel and set up the famous company which bears their names.
• 1908 The first British plane was designed and flown by A V Roe.
• 1908 Annie Elizabeth Fredericka Horniman began the British repertory movement, influencing 20th-century drama, acting, and production.
• 1919 Ernest Rutherford discovered how to split the atom at Manchester University.
• 1919 Probably the world's first scheduled airline service was set up between Manchester and Southport.
• 1948 The first computer with a stored programme and memory- nicknamed 'baby'- was developed at Manchester University.
• 1964 The first Top of the Pops was recorded in Manchester in a church on Dickenson Road in Longsight.
• 1980 Manchester became the first British Nuclear Free City.
• 1982 The Castlefield area of the city became Britain's first Urban Heritage Park.
• 1986 Renovation of Central Station was completed to become G-Mex; Europe's largest indoor arena.
• 1992 Trams were reintroduced to British streets by Manchester Metrolink service.
• 2002 The Commonwealth Games, held in Manchester, became the largest multi-sport event ever hosted in the UK.
• 2003 The Boho Britain Creativity Index ranked Manchester as the creative capital of the UK.
• 2006 Manchester was voted Britain's best city for business in a national survey of over 5,000 of the country's biggest employers in 28 cities.

If you like facts and figures and are interested in knowing more about Manchester see the attached document on the history of Manchester.

Further afield

The Netherlands

In 2007 Urban Expression Netherlands was formed as a sister organisation working in various locations in The Netherlands. To find out more about their teams and opportunities that are available please visit www.urbanexpression.nl 

 Watch the video interview here

North America

In 2009 Urban Expression North America was formed as a sister organisation with plans to work in various locations in the USA and Canada and to initiate a North American version of Crucible called Watershed.

Sweden

In 2011 plans are developing for Urban Expression to begin in Sweden.