A Brief History of CLC

On May 1st 1988, a young Wayne Malcolm with his wife Caroline and newborn son Reuben hosted their first service in the Jubilee Scout hall in Woodford Green.

The service was attended by a total of nine people, three of which were visitors. But that didn't matter to the young pastor Malcolm. He preached with all his heart and soul as if ten thousand people were there. Although the setting was small and the seating sparse, the ripples are still being felt today from that first service. The church grew rapidly as the young Bishop-to-be focused upon three main things namely; prayer, personal evangelism and leadership training. The infant church quickly outgrew this facility and within the first year was forced to relocate. In fact the church has relocated about 17 times and has outgrown any facility that it rented or purchased.

Perhaps the greatest contribution to our growth comes from the teaching emphasis of our Bishop. He insists that his time in the pulpit should add serious value to the listeners and has always sought to bring a relevant and timely message to the church.

In 1996 our pastor left his denomination and the church became fully independent. Of course we were always part of an international network of progressive ministries that provided both a sense of connection and covering to our church. These ties became even stronger after our independence. At this point we were officially renamed Christian Life Centre. We purchased a beautiful facility in Walthamstow at Chingford Road and continued to grow. Within three years we had outgrown this facility and were on the look out for something new.

We moved to a 20,000-sqft facility on Blackhorse Road in E17 in the latter part of 1998 and became the now recognized 'Christian Life CITY' This became our home for a further eight years until again a capacity crowd forced the move to our current location at the Round Chapel in Hackney.