About us

GCI UK is part of an international denomination of churches, spanning across 70 nations and countries. Our denominational home office is based in Charlotte, USA.

Our strengths as a denomination include a fresh awareness of the importance of grace, a high respect for Scripture, and a willingness to apply Scripture to our daily lives. We recognize that Jesus, our Saviour and our Lord, has reconciled us in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 

We know that Christ makes a difference in the way we live. Through the agency of the Holy Spirit, he transforms our lives in this age, and gives us eternal life in fellowship with our Creator. Jesus is alive and active, and, therefore, he continues to work with us still. We are being shaped and fashioned for his purpose. We praise him and worship him, and we seek to know his will for our lives.

Jesus has bought and paid the price for this church. It belongs to him, and we rest in this assurance!

Our focus is on Jesus being at the centre of everything we do, with members actively participating in the life of Christ together – congregations and individuals around the world, building a genuine and loving community in Christ in the bond of the Holy Spirit.

For more information on our international connections, please visit www.gci.org.

Our mission is Living and Sharing the Gospel. We are committed to living and sharing the gospel, which is the good news of what God has done through Jesus Christ. God is reconciling the world to himself and offering forgiveness of sin and eternal life through Jesus Christ. This is a goal which all Christians share.

The church seeks to fulfil this mission by: 

• Building healthy, Christ-centred congregations that are sanctuaries of worship, friendship, and nurturing pastoral care. 
• Providing sound biblical teaching through congregations, media, and personal outreach in relevant, meaningful forms for people of diverse backgrounds and ages. 
• Expressing the love of God to all through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. 
• Equipping people for Christian service so that the gospel can be known, understood, and experienced. 
• Sharing in the work of the gospel with the broader Christian community, acknowledging that we can learn from one another, and that Christ’s love goes beyond denominational boundaries. 

Grace Communion International believes that theology should be rooted in the Bible, especially the New Testament. 

Here is a summary of our core beliefs:

• The Father, Son, and Spirit are one God, united in mutual love.
• Jesus Christ, as the Word made flesh, is fully God and fully human.
• Jesus accurately reveals the goodness and love of God, and he reveals humanity as God intended us to be.
• As our Creator, Jesus represented all humanity, and all people benefit from his vicarious humanity: his life, death, resurrection, and ascension.
• Jesus Christ atoned for all sin and suffered its full consequence.
• God has in Christ reconciled all humanity to himself through his son, Jesus.
• The judgment of God against evil has been executed in Jesus Christ so that all might repent and receive forgiveness of sin and, through the Holy Spirit, share in Christ’s resurrected, eternal life.
• People are exhorted to respond to this reconciliation and participate in the life for which we were all created.
• Jesus, as the nexus of divinity and humanity, has enabled human beings to participate in the life and love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as intended by God from before the beginning of time.

If you are interested in a comprehensive look at our theology and doctrines, read The God Revealed In Jesus Christ and The GCI Statement of Beliefs. 

In the early 1930s, Herbert Armstrong began a ministry that eventually became our denomination. He founded the Worldwide Church of God which adhered to unusual doctrines that fell outside the bounds of orthodoxy. Even though much of Armstrong’s doctrinal foundation was faulty, there were still core Christian truths in the message he preached. Many unchurched people, who had little prior exposure to Christianity, came to faith through his media outreach. People came to Christ, accepted his sacrifice for their sins, and trusted in him for salvation. Many lives were transformed from sin and selfishness to service and humility. 

Just as Jesus Christ changes lives, he too has the power to change an organisation.

After Herbert Armstrong’s death in 1986, our organization began to shift dramatically. Church leaders began to realise that many of his doctrines were not biblically sound. These doctrinal changes took the better part of 10 years.

These were years of turmoil and tremendous reorientation during which many left the church over these changes. Those who remained had to reorient themselves and fully re-evaluate their relationship with God and what they believed. After struggling to understand the doctrinal change, many members began to experience a new sense of peace and joy through a renewed faith in Jesus Christ. Their identity was in him, not in any particular laws they had kept. Through all this, many members were transformed and rejoiced with a renewed zeal for their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Today, the leaders of our denomination reject Armstrong’s doctrinal errors. We acknowledge that such errors were deep and serious, but that, above all, Christ has rescued us from them.

The church is now an Evangelical denomination and is a member of the National Association of Evangelicals in the US and a member of the Evangelical Alliance in the UK. To reflect these doctrinal changes, in April 2009, the denomination changed its name from Worldwide Church of God to Grace Communion International. The Church in the UK formally changed it legal name to Grace Communion International in 2022. The name Grace Communion International better reflects who we have become and what we now teach:

GRACE is at the heart of who God is, as revealed by his Son, Jesus Christ. God relates to us out of his unconditional love and grace. Grace is God’s undeserved favour, through which he has saved us and made us one with him solely out of divine kindness and generosity.

COMMUNION is about genuine relationships: real fellowship with the Father through the Son in the communion of the Holy Spirit, and therefore, in Christ, real fellowship with one another. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one Being in perfect communion, and Jesus prayed that his disciples would share in that relationship and reflect it to the world (John 14:20; 17:23).

INTERNATIONAL identifies us as a unified body of believers who span the globe, sharing a common history and journey of faith. God has drawn us together into a church that is truly international in scope across 70 nations and territories.