Back in 1990, Dundonald Church began to meet as an exciting new church plant of 35 adults and children.
They initially met on Sundays in a local primary school and after a few years of encouraging growth, they formed their own charity. By God’s grace, Dundonald Church continued to flourish and, with the support of other local churches, subsequently planted a number of other new churches across Southwest London. Today, our shared charity, The Co-Mission Churches Trust, is responsible for nine London churches.
Our churches may appear different in many ways, but they are all enthusiastic participants in the Co-Mission church planting network and together share a common faith and mission. God’s Spirit has led and grown us by his Word in the faith summarised by the Co-Mission statement of faith and our churches are united in our doctrinal distinctives.
Given the exciting growth which God has given to our churches, The Co-Mission Churches Trust now employs around 50 staff across Southwest London and, together with hundreds of fantastic volunteers from across our churches, we are committed to serving our local communities and playing our part in seeking to reach London for Christ!
What do our churches believe?
Co-Mission Statement of Faith
God – The Holy Trinity
There is only one God, who exists eternally in three distinct but equal persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He is immortal, eternal, and perfectly and exhaustively knows the end from the beginning. He is unchangeable in his holiness, justice, wisdom and love. He is the almighty Creator; Saviour and Judge, sovereign in the election, salvation and preservation of his people in Christ. God is sovereign over all things, both good and evil; though, he is not the author of evil, nor does he delight in it.
The Bible
God has revealed himself and his promises in the Bible, which consists of the Old and New Testaments alone. Every word was inspired by God through human authors, so that the Bible as originally given is, in its entirety, the Word of God, without error and fully reliable in fact and doctrine. The Bible is clear to all who seek God’s will and are willing to live by it, though the human mind is finite and fallen in its reading of it. The Bible alone speaks with final authority and is always sufficient for all matters of belief and practice.
The Human Race
All men and women, being created in the image of God, have inherent and equal dignity and worth. This dignity is not annulled by gender role distinction or male headship in marriage and in church leadership. Their greatest purpose is to obey, worship and love God. Adam and Eve, our first parents, rebelled against God and plunged themselves and their offspring into ruin. Because of Adam’s sin, every aspect of human nature has been corrupted and all men and women are without spiritual life, guilty sinners and hostile to God. Every person is therefore under the just condemnation of God and needs to be reborn, justified, forgiven, reconciled to God in Christ in order to know and please him.
The Lord Jesus Christ
The Lord Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin, and lived a sinless life in obedience to the Father. He taught with authority and all his words are true. On the cross he died in the place of sinners, bearing God’s punishment for their sin, redeeming them by his blood and reconciling to God all those who believe. He rose bodily from the dead and so was vindicated by his Father. He broke the power of death and defeated Satan, and brought everlasting life to all his people. In his resurrection body he ascended into heaven where he is exalted as Lord of all. He intercedes for his people in the presence of the Father. Salvation is in and through the Lord Jesus Christ alone.
Salvation
Salvation is entirely a work of God’s grace and cannot be earned or deserved. From all eternity God determined in grace to save a great multitude of guilty sinners from all peoples, and to this end foreknew them, predestined them and chose them. This plan of salvation has been accomplished in history by the Lord Jesus Christ’s once and for all penal substitutionary death, resurrection and ascension. This salvation now is offered freely and openly to all through the gospel. God in his love sovereignly applies this accomplished salvation to the elect through union with his Son. In Christ he effectually calls, regenerates and grants his elect repentance and faith. The elect are justified through faith alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone. In Christ, God mercifully imputes to believers the righteousness of his Son, so that they are declared righteous in his sight and pardoned of all sin. In Christ they are adopted into the family of God, progressively sanctified by the Holy Spirit for holiness and are preserved for the coming Kingdom and New Creation.
The Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity and is fully God. He has been sent by the Father and the Son. In his work He glorifies the Son and applies the work of salvation to God’s people through union with the Son. He regenerates and imparts spiritual life to spiritually dead sinners, so that they are convicted of sin and repent and believe.The Spirit inspired all Scripture and speaks in Scripture today. He indwells all believers, brings assurance of salvation and, while believers still battle personal and corporate sin, the Spirit progressively produces in believers increasing likeness to Christ. He gives gifts to build up the Church and empowers its members for worship, service and mission.
The Church
The universal Church is the body of which Christ is the head and to which all who are saved belong. It is made visible in local churches, which are central to the saving plan of God, and are led by godly, accountable elders. They are congregations of believers who are committed to each other for the worship of God, the preaching of the Word, and the administering of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. They are to engage in pastoral care and discipline, mutual love and encouragement, to call all people to repentance and faith in the gospel of Christ, and to equip believers for world mission, mercy, and justice. The unity of the body of Christ is expressed within and between churches by mutual love, care and encouragement. True fellowship between churches exists only where they are faithful to the gospel.
The Future
The Lord Jesus Christ will personally and bodily return in glory. He will raise the dead and judge the world in righteousness. Unbelievers will be sent to eternal conscious punishment where they are separated from the benevolent presence of God in Hell. Those who live by faith in Christ will be welcomed into a life of eternal joy in fellowship with God in the promised New Creation. God will make all things new and will be glorified in all things forever.
Statement of Doctrinal Distinctives
Our churches may appear different in many ways, but they are all enthusiastic participants in the Co-Mission church planting network and together share a common faith and mission. God’s Spirit has led and grown us by his Word in the faith summarised by the Co-Mission statement of faith and our churches are united in the following doctrinal distinctives:
Reformed Evangelical
We are joyfully convinced of the sovereignty of God in all things. This results in our shared commitment to dependant and expectant prayer.
Gospel-centred Biblical theology
Together, we are committed to proclaiming God’s gospel of grace that Jesus is Christ our Lord, who came as our king, died for our sins, rose to rule and will return to judge and renew all things to the glory of God, bringing peace, hope and life in his kingdom to all who repent of their sins and believe in Jesus. We believe this gospel is progressively revealed in the Bible and results in all our teaching being centred upon learning from the Bible as it relates to Jesus.
Bible-teaching is the heart…but not the whole
Our worship issues in mission
We believe Christ calls and commissions his followers to worship Him in all of life, especially in making disciples of all nations. We believe God has delayed the end of the world, extended our lives, and placed us where we live, work and socialise to love people in every way we can, especially with the gospel in our evangelism, cross-cultural mission and church planting.
We rejoice in the ministry and gifts of God’s Holy Spirit
We are not ‘charismatic’ but nor are we ‘cessationist’. We delight in God’s gift of his own Spirit revealing the truth about Christ in his Word to regenerate and grow us in Christ-like holiness and with gifts for mutual service. Our Sunday services are contemporary, combining the recital of historic creeds and prayers with exuberant praise of God with high quality bands typically of a ‘Sovereign Grace’ style. But the unapologetic focus of our services is a Spirit-empowered (carefully prepared, structured and illustrated) sermon, passionately expounding and applying God’s Word to our lives.
Pastors must be servant-hearted men
We believe our Lord Jesus demands high standards of godliness in church pastors – not lording it over those entrusted to their care – but being examples to the flock in serving the Good Shepherd who did not come to be served but to serve. We also believe the Bible clearly requires pastors and elders to be godly men and so we are unashamedly ‘complementarian’ i.e. we rejoice in the wisdom of God in creating all human beings in two equal, but different and ordered sexes, male and female. While we recognise the complexities of current debates and feel great compassion for those with all kinds of gender dysphoria and confused sexuality, we believe the Bible assigns different responsibilities to men and women in marriage and in church, with Christ as the model for both. In addition to appointing male pastors and elders, we also rejoice in the gifts and ministries of the many women who serve faithfully and tirelessly throughout so many vital areas of church life.
Marriage is the life-long union of one man and one woman
We believe God’s Word clearly teaches that sexual intimacy is a precious gift from God to be enjoyed exclusively within the context of heterosexual marriage between one man and one woman and serves as a type of the union between Christ and His Church. We are therefore not permitted to offer prayers of blessing or any other affirmation of physical same-sex relationships.
Cultural diversity is our intention and joy
Cultural diversity is our heaven-inspired, cross-empowered, mission-required, church-enriching, Christ-exalting joy! We are delighted and challenged by the growing ethnic and cultural diversity given to us by God and are committed to humbly listening and changing, genuinely apologising and forgiving, enjoying our different backgrounds and experience of God’s grace, and to celebrating our uniting primary identity in Christ.
We seek to glorify God
Our churches are united in our desire to worship Jesus Christ as our loving Saviour and living Lord, in the power of the Holy Spirit and to the glory of our heavenly Father!
How to find out more?
The best way to find out more about our churches and about our Lord Jesus Christ is to visit one of our churches. Full details of each of our churches and where they meet can be found on their websites.
As a charitable company, CMCT is regulated by both the Charity Commission for England and Wales and by Companies House.
