This is a good, common and understandable question – partly because Dundonald’s denominational history is complex. In the past, the church has been part of the Church of England, although that is no longer the case. And so, the short answer is that Dundonald is not part of a formal denomination. We are an evangelical church, and very glad to be part of The Co-Mission Churches Trust (‘CMCT’) and the Co-Mission Network of churches in London. This means that, even though we don’t belong to a denomination, we have real accountability (to external trustees) and active partnership (with gospel churches). We will explain this partnership in more detail below, but in order to understand where Dundonald is now, it would be helpful to know something of Dundonald’s history.
A brief history of Dundonald
Dundonald Church started life as a church plant from Emmanuel Wimbledon in 1990. Emmanuel was (and still is) a Church of England church with a heart for reaching people in Raynes Park as well as Wimbledon. And so, after many months of planning and praying, around 35 adults and children started meeting at Dundonald School on the 3rd June 1990. At this time, Dundonald was structurally part of Emmanuel Wimbledon and under the oversight of the Vicar of Emmanuel and was, therefore, part of the Church of England.
For the next 5 years, Emmanuel continued to provide the preaching and oversight for Dundonald until, in July 1995, Rev. Richard Coekin was appointed as Dundonald’s first full-time pastor. Richard was an ordained Anglican minister and was officially licensed by the Bishop of Southwark to lead Dundonald. This cemented the church as part of the Church of England – not only did Dundonald start life as a plant from a Church of England church, but now, in licensing the pastor, the Church of England was recognising Dundonald as part of its structures.
However, despite this, Dundonald didn’t look or feel very Church of England. The church met in a school, didn’t have a ‘parish’, the pastor didn’t wear a dog collar or robes and rather than a PCC and Wardens, the church appointed elders. Furthermore, Dundonald didn’t receive any buildings or financial support from the Church of England and the church had no representatives at Deanery, Diocesan or General Synods (the official Church of England Councils). In fact, there were times when the Church of England were not simply unsupportive of Dundonald’s ministry, they were actively opposed to the evangelical nature of the church and its pastor. Not only did the local Bishop seek to stop Dundonald planting churches, he would not ordain godly men from the church for ministry and refused to publicly teach what the Bible says about sex and marriage being for one man and one woman. It was clear that the diocese was on a very different biblical path to the church.
This came to a head in 2005 when the then Bishop of Southwark removed Richard Coekin’s license – meaning that he no longer had Church of England permission to minister as an Anglican clergyman. Richard appealed and, after a lengthy legal process, the Archbishop of Canterbury ruled that the Bishop of Southwark’s handling of the situation was ‘seriously flawed’ and his sanction to remove Richard’s license was ‘disproportionate’. Richard was given his license back and allowed to continue his ministry at Dundonald as a recognised Church of England minister. However, due to significant theological (and moral) differences with the Bishop of Southwark, Richard and the church were, from that point on, in ‘impaired communion’ with the Bishop. This meant that an already weak link with the Church of England was made even weaker.
Even though Dundonald had no formal oversight from the Church of England, nor any financial partnership or synodical representation, the church continued to be ‘technically’ Church of England on account of the pastor’s official (reinstated) license from the Diocese.
However, this changed in 2012 when a new Vicar (Rev. Robin Weekes) was appointed at Emmanuel Wimbledon. Given that Dundonald was a plant from Emmanuel, Richard Coekin’s license was linked to Emmanuel, even though the two churches were, by this time, completely separate. So, with the arrival of a new Vicar at Emmanuel, it was an opportunity to clarify that Richard and Dundonald were now independent from Emmanuel. From the Church of England’s point of view, this meant swapping Richard’s license for a ‘Permission To Officiate’ (P.T.O). A P.T.O is like a license in that it provides formal recognition from the Church of England for a person to exercise Anglican Ministry. However, it is different from a license in that, whereas a license links the minister with a particular congregation (a minister is licensed to a parish/church), a P.T.O separates the minister from the congregation (a minister is permitted to officiate anywhere in the diocese). In effect, a license says: ‘the minister is recognised by the Church of England and the congregation they lead is, therefore, Church of England’. A P.T.O says in effect, ‘the minister is recognised as Church of England, but the congregation is not’.
So when, in 2012, Richard swapped a license for a P.T.O, technically, he remained in the Church of England, but Dundonald (as a church) did not. No one realised this at the time, and nothing at Dundonald looked any different to the previous 22 years – the church didn’t look or feel Church of England prior to 2012, and it didn’t look or feel Church of England after 2012. And so, Dundonald continued with a Church of England pastor and with historical roots in the Church of England, even though the church was no longer technically part of the Church of England.
As mentioned above, this wasn’t clear at the time, and so the church continued to operate as if it were part of the Church of England, when it wasn’t. This led to Richard requesting ‘alternative episcopal oversight’ in 2015, when the Church of England consecrated Rev. Rod Thomas as Bishop of Maidstone. The Bishop of Maidstone was a role created by the Church of England for clergy who couldn’t accept their Diocesan Bishop’s ministry (for theological or moral reasons). So, given that Richard was still in ‘impaired communion’ with the Bishop of Southwark, Rod Thomas became Richard’s new Bishop. This oversight transferred to Rev. Rob Munro in 2023 when Rev. Rod Thomas retired. In practice, the oversight of Bishops Rod and Rob was little more than them coming to Dundonald every few years to conduct Baptisms and Confirmations. But, given the previous relationship Richard and Dundonald had with the Bishop of Southwark, it was a great blessing to have evangelical Bishops seeking to support and encourage!
To make a complex situation even more confusing, Dundonald announced in January 2024 that the church was ‘leaving the Church of England’. This decision was taken by the church elders in response to the Church of England’s move to bless same sex marriages. This was the ‘final straw’ after many years of frustration with the direction the Church of England was taking away from the Bible. Whilst for some, this announcement was a big moment and a decisive break, in reality, nothing changed. Richard continued to hold a P.T.O and the church looked and felt just as it had done for the past 34 years – a Bible-teaching, Jesus-loving, mission-focused evangelical church with an Anglican history but not structurally or legally part of the Church of England. In many ways, the decision to leave the Church of England was clarifying what Dundonald’s position had actually been since 2012.
What does this mean for Dundonald Church now?
After 29 years of courageous, faithful service, Richard Coekin stepped into a new national church consultancy role (with Reach UK Ministries) in September 2024, and Dundonald appointed Richard Leadbeater to succeed him as Senior Pastor. He, like Richard Coekin, is also ordained in the Church of England, and has a background in Anglicanism, although he has not held a licence since 2014. But also, like his predecessor, ‘Leady’ as he is known, is Evangelical first and foremost and ‘Anglican’ a distant second! Our prayer is that he, along with the other elders, will continue to build on the solid evangelical foundations established since 1990, whatever the denominational future might look like.
As we said at the beginning, Dundonald Church is not currently part of a formal denomination – no longer Church of England, nor formally part of the wider Anglican structures, nor affiliated with the FIEC. Having said that, it is worth noting that the pastors and elders of Dundonald have more accountability through CMCT and Co-Mission than was ever the case through the Church of England. Dundonald is legally part of CMCT, a registered charity in England and Wales whose trustees are largely external to Dundonald and to whom the pastor, staff and elders are accountable. Previously, whilst Dundonald technically had Bishops, the relationship with the Bishops was either distant (as in the case of Rod Thomas and Rob Munro) or else broken (as in the case with the Bishop of Southwark). Moreover, because Dundonald was, at best, on the fringe of the Church of England, Bishops had no actual authority or real oversight. However, as part of CMCT, the pastor is employed by the trustees of the CMCT, who would be able to step in and act if he goes off the rails theologically or morally.
Not only does CMCT provide real accountability, but being part of the wider Co-Mission network also brings active partnership. Like other churches in Co-Mission, Dundonald contributes financially to the network’s running and the support for other gospel churches in London. The Lead Pastor is part of a group of pastors from churches across London who meet and pray together regularly and provide support, encouragement and an additional level of accountability. They are committed to working together to plant churches and reach more people across our city, and Dundonald contributes significantly to the annual REVIVE weekend and Staff Conference run by Co-Mission.
Being part of such a network is a great joy, and whilst it is not a ‘denomination’, it does mean that Dundonald is not independent but interdependent – enjoying real accountability and active partnership for the building up of the church and the glory of God!
