Building Community within a community - THCC work on East London estates

Tony Uddin describes why a number of council estates close to Tower Hamlets Community Church are central to their vision and how they are working there

I want to let you know a little bit about two estates that we as a church are committed to. They are the Ocean estate in Stepney and the Teviot estate in Poplar. Personally I have had an interest in both of these places for years. When I first came to Tower Hamlets in 1995 I worked as a part of a YWAM team and each week we would prayer walk, usually around the Teviot or the Ocean. I now live about two minutes walk from the Ocean.

These two estates form a key part of our church vision. We are a borough wide church but we realise that the larger we get, the more important it is that we are continuing to remain small. This means building community where people live. It also means that we are committed to impacting some specific places in our borough and these two estates are central to that. Whilst we don’t want to plant small churches on them, we do want to have home groups and other expressions of church on them. We have people who are committed to seeing change come to both of these places. So what does that look like?

On the Teviot estate

On the Teviot estate we have a number of families. Most of them are people that could live elsewhere, in “better” places, but they have lived there for a long time and want to live there. They are people that are at the heart of the church and the heart of their community. People who are living out kingdom values and loving their neighbours, people that I admire deeply. A lot of the people who come to the evangelistic events that we do come as a result of these people and the home group that meets on the estate. This home group also runs church services in the local sheltered housing project which is on the estate.

In addition to this the church community youth work charity, the Canaan Project   runs a youth club on the estate. The Canaan Projects remit is “provision where there is no provision” and in the past year we have successfully launched a weekly night of activities in the neighbourhood centre there that draws a diverse range of young people with a mix of sporting and creative activities. We are looking to the long term and building a range of partnerships with other community groups, the local school and the main social housing provider. We want to be people who serve those who live on the Teviot and this forms the basis of all that we are doing there.

On the Ocean estate

What we have been doing on the Ocean is a bit different. We have a number of families that live on the edge of the estate and within two or three minutes walk of it, in central Stepney. It's somewhere we are keen to see more people move in to. What we do have is three or four people who have built up strong relationships with a number of young adults in the area. This has largely been through simply taking an interest in them as they have met them through various expressions of Christian community work.

Over the last two years they have really focused on working with these young adults. They’ve helped a number of them into employment and training (in partnership with City Gateway a Christian charity that works particularly with NEET people (Not in Employment, Education or Training) and in doing so have shared life with them, opening up their homes to them. A part of this has been regular social events such as film screenings, BBQ’s and weekends away. On the back of this they ran an Alpha style course called “LIFE” (timings had to fit with those on bail tags!!). Several of these young adults have become Christians and are an active part of church. Discipleship has proved tough, but they are making real progress. The team are now looking at doing another “LIFE“ course. It's been long term work and it's cost a great deal in terms of commitment, finance and time but has been absolutely worthwhile. These young adults are amazing and precious people who enhance our church greatly.

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