About
Our story
We’re a multicultural, multigenerational church in South East London with Jesus at the centre of everything we do. Through worship, biblical teaching, prayer, community and mission, we want every person to be known, supported and encouraged to grow.
What we’re for
Where Jesus is encountered, people are valued and lives are transformed.
It is easy to put a sentence like that on a website. Here is what each part of it actually means, and what it looks like in practice.
Jesus is encountered
We want to create environments where people can meet Jesus — often for the first time, sometimes in a way they have not before. He is the foundation of everything this church does.
In practice: Two services every Sunday, sung worship, prayer ministry, and teaching that works through the Bible rather than around it.
People are valued
People are loved as they come, and then invested in — not processed. Being known by name matters more here than being useful.
In practice: Life Groups across the area, ministries for every stage of life, and outreach that serves people who will never sit in our building.
Lives are transformed
We expect God to change things: families, generations, circumstances and health. We pray expectantly and we have seen him answer.
In practice: Discipleship through Life Groups, prayer for healing, and a hundred people sent on mission through Go100.
What we value
Seven things we keep coming back to.
Not a list we drew up in a meeting — these are the things this church actually spends its time, money and Sundays on.
Worship
Sunday is not a performance. It is the whole church turning towards God together.
Biblical teaching
Sound doctrine, taught plainly, and open to be checked against Scripture.
Prayer
We pray expectantly, together and on our own, for the things that matter.
Community
Church is people. Life Groups, shared meals and showing up for one another.
Discipleship
Growth is the expectation, not the exception. Nobody is meant to stay still.
Next generation
Children and young people are the church now, not the church later.
Mission
Locally through Lifebread and The Pantry, and globally through Go100.
Our heritage
A hundred years, and counting
Emmanuel Gateway recently marked a hundred years within Assemblies of God — a century of this church being present in South East London through everything the last hundred years have thrown at it.
We are proud of that. But a heritage is only worth having if it is still being put to work, and the story we are most interested in is the one being written now: the person who walked in last Sunday, the family that found a Life Group, the hamper packed for a neighbour who needed it.
Emmanuel Gateway is an Assemblies of God Pentecostal church. If you want to know what that means in practice, our beliefs are set out in full.
“Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” 1 Corinthians 12:27
Everyone has a part.
There is no audience here, only a body. Whatever you bring — time, skill, questions, doubts — there is a place for it.