The story of the International Presbyterian Church Ealing is linked to the ministry of Francis Schaeffer in Switzerland.
That ministry resulted in the founding of the IPC in 1954. From its early days, a close association existed between the IPC and L’Abri, Schaeffer’s better-known ministry among sceptical and doubting young people, which he founded in 1955. In time, two congregations started in England. The IPC planted the first congregation in Ealing, London, in 1969, and the second in Liss, a small village in Hampshire, in 1972. Ranald Macaulay (Schaeffer’s son-in-law) led both congregations and they continue to exist today. Dick Keyes followed Ranald as minister of the church in Ealing after he moved to Liss.
At its inception, the church met in a living room on Cleveland Road, Ealing. Soon the church moved to its current premises in 1979 when it bought a chapel from the nuns of the former St Helena’s Home next door. (The chapel is now Grade 2 listed). The church in due course outgrew these premises, and moved into a newly redeveloped church building on the same site in 2018.
We want to be a church at the heart of the community. Our hope is that the new building will allow us to share and speak about the love of God more. We are firstly a community-based church. But we are also “international” in our make-up: we have people from more than 35 nationalities.
More widely, we’re part of the IPC. The IPC in the UK now comprises an English-speaking and a Korean-speaking UK presbytery (a group of churches). Worldwide, we combine with presbyteries or proto-presbyteries in Korea, Europe and other affiliated churches around the world. We’re a Reformed, evangelical church (read more here about what we believe).