Who we are
What we believe
We are called “Grace Church” for a reason. God’s grace is his extravagant, undeserved kindness to us in Jesus. And God’s grace changes everything:
- it restores us to the relationship we were made for
- it unites us and empowers us to be a new kind of community
- and it ignites us with compassion to reach out to a needy world
At Grace Church we seek to be a place where God’s grace is received and lived out.
For more detail on what we believe, see the UCCF Doctrinal Basis, the CEEC Basis of Faith, and the Renew Statement of Faith, which our Ministers and trustees subscribe to.
Meet Grace Church!
We are a community of Believers, Enquirers and Sceptics – and love spending time with one another: On Sundays during our services, mid-weeks in Bible study and prayer, and all throughout the year at various events. To get a taste of life at Grace Church, follow us on social media: YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, or see some highlights here.
Our Story
We have been meeting in Greenwich since we began in 2015. We now meet in three different venues – Canada Water Library, the King William Building in Greenwich, and at Eltham College Chapel.
The book of Acts shows us that the Lord leads his church in different ways. Sometimes the Lord leads us through inspiring us to make strategic plans, for example in Acts 13:2 when the church in Antioch sent Saul and Barnabas off to plant churches in neighbouring areas. But sometimes the Lord leads us through providence, like when the church started spreading into new areas through being scattered due to persecution in Acts 8:1-5.
On this occasion the Lord led us to Eltham more through God’s providence than through our strategy. During the Covid lockdown in 2021 we were unable to use our normal venue in Greenwich for 4 months, but an opportunity arose for us to use the Chapel at Eltham College. When the Naval College re-opened, because we had been growing in number, it was no longer possible to fit back into our old venue and so it was an obvious solution to run services in both venues.
Fast forward two years, in 2023 we were facing another period of homelessness when the Naval College decided to renovate our usual meeting room over the summer and could only offer us a smaller room, seating half of our congregation. When many attempts to find a local alternative failed, God opened doors for us to meet in Canada Water Library, and with this started our third service in Canada Water.
In both cases, there were already some Grace Church folk living in these areas, and it’s been wonderful for them to have a closer base, not least to make it easier to invite interested friends and neighbours along to church.
Although we meet in three venues, we are still very much one church, and meet together for midweek bible studies, weekends away, and many individuals attend one service and help teach Sunday school in the other. We are excited to see how the Lord might use this new development to further his kingdom.
Vision
Who’s who
We believe that God has arranged every member of the church, like parts of a body, to work together to build up the church in love (see Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12; Ephesians 4). By that reckoning, Grace Church Greenwich has over 200 ministers! We haven’t included them all below, but here are just a few of the people you might meet on a Sunday…
Rev Dr Andrew Latimer
Minister
Having originally trained as a doctor, Andrew left the medical profession in 2005 to train for pastoral ministry. Immediately before Grace Church began in 2015 Andrew spent 5 years at St Peter’s Barge running a ministry to workers in Canary Wharf. Alongside his role at Grace Church, he now serves as a part-time lecturer at the Cornhill Training Course. He loves Jesus, his wife Josie, their 4 daughters, hanging out with friends, over-analysing films, and seeing the English language used correctly. He does all his own stunts.
Rev Dr Andrew Sach
Minister
Andrew serves part-time at Grace Church Greenwich, and part-time as a tutor on the Cornhill Training Course, helping to train other preachers. He has been a regular speaker at university missions and is the co-author of several books with decreasingly-imaginative titles: Dig Deeper (2005), Dig Even Deeper (2010) and Dig Deeper into the Gospels (2015). He has a background in science that began with an explosives factory in his parents’ garage aged 15 and ended with a PhD on why two ears are better than one. He enjoys playing Bach on the piano and attempting to pour nice shapes in his coffee with frothed milk. He has 8 godchildren.
(Please email sach.speaking@greenwich.church for any external speaking requests.)
Sophie Banks
Ministry Trainee
Sophie slowly made her way up to London after growing up in Cornwall. She recently graduated from Bristol University where she studied Theatre and English, which her friends affectionately called a “clowning” degree after she took one clowning module in her second year. Sophie enjoys a good or bad romcom, finding good cafes and being in the sea.
Michaela May
Operations Manager
Michaela grew up in Germany and spent 8 years in Paris before finally making her way to London in 2019. After several years of working in consulting, Michaela joined the Grace Church staff in 2023 – initially for a women’s worker maternity cover… but we soon realized her German efficiency would be of great value in looking after the operations of Grace Church.
Michaela also studies part time at the Cornhill training course, loves travelling and leads an InterAction camp for children in France.
Johannah Ball
Communications Manager
Johannah has lived in South-East London her whole life (apart from four years spent in Scotland for university). She and her husband Adrian live in Bromley, and have been attending Grace Church since 2018. Prior to joining Grace Church as Communications Manager, Johannah worked in events and marketing for luxury hospitality and media businesses. She enjoys looking after her two small children, Zipporah and Hezekiah. When she isn’t singing nursery rhymes or attending playgroups, you can probably find her sampling a new restaurant or reading a good novel.
Boaz Atuheire
Ministry Trainee
Boaz is married to Christabel and together they have two children: Nathan and Ashley. He is passionate about missions and hearing and preaching the Bible.
He loves conversing with people, and enjoys watching and playing football for fun and fitness.
Boaz joins us from Uganda for a year where he serves with Living Word Uganda and in his local church.
Samuel Hignett
Student and Young Adult Worker
Samuel grew up in Cumbria and moved to Scotland in 2018 for university. He came to repentance and faith in his first semester of university. He stayed on in St Andrews for two years after his degree as a Ministry Trainee. He enjoys reading, listening to music, walks, and eating lasagne.
Joel Chia
Congregation Leader: Canada Water
Joel serves as the congregational pastor of the Canada Water service, which he joined when it first started in 2023. Originally from Singapore, Joel worked in finance before moving to London. For six years, he was part of the team at St Helen’s Bishopsgate, where he worked with international students and led a workplace ministry in Covent Garden. He cares deeply about people coming to know Jesus, especially the workplace. Alongside ministry, he studied at the Cornhill Training Course and King’s College London. He is married to Matilda, enjoys exploring the countryside on two wheels and can often be seen in Lycra.
Jonny Tilford
Youth and Children’s Team Coordinator
Jonny was born and raised in Warwick before moving to London where his desire to reach the nations with the gospel was ignited. After a few years working with churches in Europe, Jonny is training in the UK. His secret love of excellent Christian children’s music couldn’t be contained and he is now delighted to serve the church’s children with faithful teaching. Jonny is very thankful to be married to Julia, they live in South Bermondsey.
Accountability
Grace Church is part of the Church of England. We are in the Diocese of Southwark, and have been granted extended Episcopal Oversight from the Bishop of Ebbsfleet. Find out more about our Bishop.
We are also a charity with trustees, who are accountable to the Charity Commission, and you can find out more about our trustees.
If you have questions or concerns about Grace Church you can address them here.