We have a team of 5 co-vocational ministers sharing 1 stipend.
A further 4 members of our church serve as part of our Leadership Team
Sally and Dave Mann have a long history of leadership in our church.
Sally’s family have been worshipping at Bonny Downs Church for 5 generations. She is an accredited Baptist Minister and has worked for the Baptist Mission Forum and Spurgeon's College to write new units to train missional leaders and teaches on MA programmes for the Nazarene Theological College. She oversees our church’s teaching ministry. Sally has a PhD in Philosophy & Theology and is a Sociology Lecturer at Greenwich University. Sally works 2 days a week for our church and is our Senior Minister, overseeing the Leadership Team.
Dave is also an accredited Baptist Minister and is an experienced and passionate community development activist. Under his leadership, Bonny Downs Church launched the Bonny Downs Community Association (BDCA) which has been making a significant local impact since 1998. Dave served as our Pastor for over 20 years and continues as part of our Leadership Team, helping us to live out our mission through community organising.
Sally and Dave are founding trustees of Red Letter Christians UK, aiming to give a voice to local churches working for Jesus and justice http://redletterchristians.org.uk/
Dave now works as Co-CEO of a national Christian charity called Seedbeds https://seedbeds.org/
Sally was interviewed about her story on the Leaving Egypt podcast https://leavingegyptpodcast.substack.com/p/ep18-taking-jesus-seriously-in-the
Jonny
Jonny joined our leadership team in 2017 and was commissioned in 2020 to be our Assistant Pastor. Jonny is passionate and dedicated about finding ways to support the growing number of homeless people in our community and he feels called to lead Bonny Downs to blur the edges of our Church by modelling God's Grace & Compassion among our midweek activities, with a focus on being with those who most need to experience this.
In January 2019 Jonny took on The Community Chaplaincy role. This is two-fold role. The first aspect of the role will involve providing opportunities for those we meet and journey with in midweek ministries (such as the NEWway night shelter, NEWday advice centre, and Foodbank), to connect with spirituality. Instead of just doing ‘good work’, Jonny is passionate about keeping our Christian faith at the heart of what we do and why we do it. With Bonny Downs being a church full of do-ers, his heart is that we become a community of what Thomas Merton calls, ‘contemplative activists’, whereby our internal spiritual and emotional wellbeing is linked to our role in creating positive change in the outer world.
Click on the link below to find out more about what Jonny does within the community:
Sarah
Sarah is another member of the ministerial team. In January 2021 she took on responsibility for Pastoral care within BDCA, Sarah feels passionate about helping to equip, encourage and grow others into pastoral roles and feels called to 'lead a cultural shift to equip us to be a community of pastors, caring for each other and our neighbourhood’
Sarah is also our Church Administrator and Treasurer and works for Bonny Downs Community Association as their managing director with responsibility for Personnel & Pastoral wellbeing of staff, she has a real heart for supporting people to be the best that they can be.and is passionate about promoting cohesion and inclusion within both our Church and Community.
Rachel
Rachel is our Minister in Training and a co-vocational primary school teacher. She is training for Baptist Leadership with Northern Baptist College and looking to start a PhD in theology. Rachel is a blessed musician and worship leader and a great pastor. She is an experienced leader, part of the founding team of Two:23 https://www.two23.net/.
Church Members who are part of our Leadership Team
Stacey
Stacey has lived in East Ham her whole life and has a heart for our community- promoting inclusion, empowerment and celebration within her role as a Children & Families project coordinator for Bonny Downs Community Association. Stacey seeks to blur the boundaries of community and Church to bring a holistic and vibrant approach to inspiring Children to grow in their faith and character and for parents/carers to feel supported as they experience the joys and challenges of raising their families.
Stacey an alumni of the Urban School of Leadership “Changemakers” programme and now leads the “Young Changemakers” cohort in E6, developing young people's leadership skills.
Her participation in Changemakers sparked a joy of learning and to lean deeper into Gods call on her life. In 2023 she graduated from Nazarene Theological College with a Masters degree in Theology with Humanitarian and Social Justice.
Click on the link below to find out more about what Stacey does within the community:
Errol
Errol is passionate about praying for and encouraging the men within our community and seeing relationships deepen.
He works in Further Education, overseeing a student engagement programme engagement and longs to see barriers to education overcome.
Errol has THE BEST reading voice in the whole church - we could listen to him for days on end!
Philippa
Philippa has lived in Newham since 199, working in voluntary sector fundraising and project management. She is currently one of the co-directors of Bonny Downs Community Association. Philippa has led on the development of our Bonny Downs church building project, the Urban Abbey and the next challenge is fundraising to get it built. Philippa is also Chair of Eko Trust, and a visual artist - a regular workshop leader at the Greenbelt festival
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Mary
Mary first came to East Ham from Canvey Island in 1979 and moved around the corners of London, living within the Asian community and returning to live in East Ham in 1994.
She has a working background in the business world of management ,logistics and problem solving, serving 42 years of fulltime employment in Trainee accounting, Forensic Science and the Retail Industry. She is passionate about workers rights, compassion for mental health and people struggling with day to day issues. She has been an intermittent supporter of Bonny Downs since 2001 becoming actively involved in her faith after her early retirement and baptism in 2019. She facilitates with the Life Groups and general church activities and became a Newham Covid Champion to assist the church through the pandemic.
