Who We Are
York Community Church has been a witness for Christ in the east of York since November 1993.
We are a mixed bag of believers, varying in age, social backgrounds and Christian experience. Yet in the midst of our diversity we are united in our vision:
Together, to know God and make Him known.
Over the years we have met together in various congregational structures, locations and participated in a breadth of mission activities.
We remain committed to our values of: faith, love, unity, trust, enjoyment; and also to our mission purpose of making disciple-making disciples.
Who We Are Becoming
As Christians we carry a testimony of God’s saving transformation – His forgiveness, His acceptance, His deliverance, His restoration … and Jesus continues to work in us and through us, individually and corporately, that we may become all He intended us to be.
We pray that we will know His wholeness and peace, in order to live in joy and hope, seeking first His Kingdom and His righteousness, that in bringing glory to His Name, we will become effective and fruitful disciples of Jesus.
As believers at YCC we are committed to seeing people encounter the love of God through Jesus Christ. We are therefore continuing to build wisely to increasingly become a place of discipleship, pastoral care and mission.
Together, to know God
and make Him known.
About YCC Structure
What’s distinctive about YCC?
At YCC our approach has much in common with many other churches as we seek to follow Jesus. In common with many churches we subscribe to the Evangelical Alliance Basis of Faith, but there are a number of features of YCC that you may find distinctive and may help you understand YCC better. These are: team leadership, grassroots ministry, belonging not membership, ready to change, and open worship. These distinctive features lead to a church where we have naturally become multi-faceted, with different ministries emerging for various ages and groups; and we have aimed to remain outward looking and relevant to the culture around us.
Team Leadership
We acknowledge that Jesus is the head of the church (his body here on earth). We seek to uphold this key principle with a flat leadership structure. YCC is led by a team of Church Leaders (previously known as Elders). In this team, each Church Leader carries the same level of responsibility for spiritual oversight of the congregation. Currently there are 9 in this leadership team. We recognise and value the leadership gifts of both men and women on this team and in the wider leadership of activities and ministries within YCC.
Who is the pastor?
We currently have 3 church ministers – Mark with a discipleship focus, Vanessa with a pastoral focus and James with an outreach focus. You can find out more on the page ‘Our Team’.
Grassroots ministry
The YCC leadership seeks to enable and oversee church activities, not control them. We recognise that as Christians we are all members of the body of Christ, with different functions and different gifts of God’s grace. We expect all who belong to YCC to participate fully in the life of the church and serve as God enables them. We seek to provide fertile ground for believers to grow into their calling and gifts and promote a culture where initiatives aligned with our vision, values and mission can be championed by anyone. This has resulted in a wide variety of ministries: new activities which run under the church umbrella, separate organisations strongly supported by YCC, and individuals sent on missions in the UK or abroad.
Belonging not membership
We do not have a formal membership and endeavour to maintain a culture of belonging to a family rather than membership of a club. To safeguard our workers and vulnerable attendees, we make necessary checks on those in positions of trust and responsibility, but generally speaking, we seek to make the barriers to participating in church life as low as they can be. We seek to love and support people no matter where they are on their Christian journey.
Ready to change, but anchored in God
We believe in the authority of the Holy Bible as God’s inspired word and seek to make it our prime source of faith and practice. We also recognise the authority and guiding of the Holy Spirit and seek to follow His leading. As such we aim to be a church that is changed and changing: not tied to a specific style of meeting or worship, accepting that some ministries will naturally end, and ready to embrace new things God has for us.