Leadership: Elders and staff
Immanuel Church Brentwood is a presbyterian church led by a team of elders who together have responsibility for shepherding the flock. All elders are approved by and are accountable to the British presbytery of the International Presbyterian Church.
Our Elders
Day-to-day leadership of Immanuel is exercised by the church’s Elders. Our current team consists of Andrew Grey and Gavin Wright (our teaching elders or ministers), plus Mark Smithers and Will Trump (elected by church members to serve as governing elders). Here's some more information...
Revd Andrew Grey is our minister. Previously he worked on the staff teams of St Peter's Church in Harold Wood and St Helen's Bishopsgate in the City of London. He holds post-graduate degrees from Durham University and Oak Hill Theological College. Andrew is married to Elizabeth. They have three children.
Revd Gavin Wright is our Associate Minister. He is a school-teacher by background. Previously he worked for schools in Romford, Hornchurch and Lebanon. Gavin trained as a preacher at the Proclamation Trust's Cornhill Training Course and has studied at Oak Hill Theological College. He is married to Jessica. They have three young children.
Mark Smithers is married to Charlotte, and father to their two grown-up daughters. Having trained as a chef, he now works in further education.
Steve is married to Charlotte and they have been at Immanuel with their five children since 2018. They love being part of the church family in Brentwood.
Women's Worker
Charlotte Smithers is our part-time Women’s Worker, helping to disciple the women in our church. Charlotte is married to Mark, with two grown-up children; by background she is an occupational therapist.
Church office manager and Safeguarding Officer
Caroline Evans works part-time as our church office manager. She is also our Safeguarding Officer. Caroline is married to Matt and they have two children.
Trustees and Constitution
Immanuel is a registered charity. Legal and financial oversight of Immanuel rests with the trustees of the church. This group consists of our elders (see above), plus several others elected from among the members of the church (currently Alison Drummond, Alane Lunn, Kirsten Witchalls and Denis Parsons, who is also our church treasurer).
Our Presbytery
Immanuel is a congregation of the International Presbyterian Church (IPC), which was founded in 1954 through the ministry of Francis Schaeffer, and now has congregations across the UK, Europe and Far East. We are in the IPC’s British Presbytery. This is the body of elders from all the IPC’s British churches. It meets 4 times per year. These meetings are public and anyone is welcome to attend.
If any church member has questions or concerns that they wish to raise directly with the presbytery they are welcome to contact the Moderator, Chris Cradock (moderator.uk@ipc.church) or the Clerk, Iain Clements (clerk.uk@ipc.church).