ARK Journal: What’s in your Hands?
⏲ 4 minute read
Kings Cross Church (KXC) is an Anglican church that was commissioned by the Bishop of London in 2010, led by Pete and Bee Hughes. Being initially planted with no permanent building, KXC has in its DNA an entrepreneurial edge, exploring places and spaces to create and foster community from the outset.
The story of KXC and ARK is one which asks the question: How can the church serve and build relationships with the working and creative lives of its community?
In the early days of KXC's journey, the church was generously offered temporary use of a vacant office block in the heart of Kings Cross. Despite its dated interior, the space was vast, spanning multiple floors and just a short distance from the main Sunday church venue. Led by a dedicated couple within the church, the space was creatively transformed using restored furniture sourced from roadsides and flea markets, giving birth to TENT under a “pay what you can” model. The local freelance community was invited in, and the space soon flourished, attracting creatives from all walks of life.
As the TENT story drew to a close some two years later when the building was developed, there was a strong desire to continue this story. ARK coworking began. In 2016 ARK and KXC took on a dilapidated Victorian tenement building - built in 1889, its early occupants made a home in three-roomed dwellings arranged over four floors above ground floor shops. In its latter years, it was an office for a community action group.
The plan was to create a staff office for KXC and form a new coworking space to meet the need we had seen in our community.
The building needed a lot of love and the church community met the challenge, putting on their overalls, picking up paint brushes and helping to decorate and restore the building. It was transformed into a space that could host midweek small groups, establish a staff office, facilitate the live streaming of Sunday services during the pandemic and serve as the new home for ARK coworking.
a missional community revealing Christ to people in a workplace setting
As our members told us their stories, we also learned first hand the effect that working in isolation has on people’s mental health, a pervasive issue in London driven by high costs of living that can force individuals to work at home or in coffee shops. This can be disproportionately experienced in creative industries and start-ups, where there tends to a higher percentage of individuals working by themselves. A missional community like ARK can also play a practical role in providing community to support people through challenging times, and within that, revealing Christ to people in a workplace setting.
In developing a business model for ARK coworking, we considered what the equivalent cost of 4x coffees a day would be for a freelancer in a coffee shop, ensuring the space was affordable enough to choose to belong in a coworking community over an impersonal coffee shop.
For this project, the church initially invested £200k into the building with ARK coworking going on to turn over £1.36m between 2016-2022. ARK was a sustainable project, able to pay rent of £616k to the church and donate £37k to other charities in the area. Most importantly, ARK remained an affordable workspace, supporting over 600 people and incubating 10+ small businesses.
“ARK have played a key role in enabling us to serve
God’s purpose for the renewal of our area”
- Pete Hughes, KXC
ARK coworking showed us that God can use what he has put in our hands, even just a tired old office block, to creatively serve our business community. Do you have an under-used or old building in your hands that could be reimagined in a similar way? What is your origin story?
To find out more about the ARK journey or speak to us about your vision for a church building, visit What’s in your hands and get in touch.
