Our Story

September 19, 2019

Urban Hope is a relatively young pioneer church formed 7 years ago from scratch in the centre of Coventry, which is an increasingly vibrant and progressive city. The church operates primarily from a coffee shop in the city centre arcade, which used to be the shop where Richard Branson first started his Virgin Records store!

The vision for Urban Hope was of a relevant and fit-for-purpose church, radically addressing the spiritual needs of people who, for a range of reasons, spent much of their time in the City Centre. This formed from work already being done in two city centre projects - Coffee Tots, a cafe/parenting project for young and isolated mums and Bardsley Youth Project, a City Centre youth outreach programme.

There was no church locally able to meet the particular practical and spiritual needs of these groups of people, who were often the most deprived in the city, and so ‘Urban Hope’ was born, formed as a Bishop’s Mission Order, with the support of all local churches. It is now a recognised Anglican church in the City Centre, along with 2 other Pioneer churches, 2 existing churches, and the Cathedral.

Urban Hope is therefore specifically aimed at and predominately made up of people without previous church experience or background, almost all of whom are young, and almost all of whom have or have had major struggles of one sort or another in life.

The church has grown over the 7 years from a very small group to start it, to now over 100 people, including lots of children.

The Church community are all very much involved together in helping to shape this young church. It is nothing like a ‘normal’ Anglican church! Our gatherings usually include a meal, with an emphasis on hospitality, community and Bible-based discussion and there’s lots of time spent together in prayer, and socially. Discussions are often led by the young people themselves, which mean that they can be very different, with no two weeks ever alike!