Our Story

“We are a family on a mission to create spaces for people of all nations to encounter God, be equipped to bring life to the city and experience the outworking of this in our day-to-day”

The Past

The church began in 2010 when Chris and Nic Kimmance moved to Ashford from Southend as God prompted them to plant the church, with a toddler and a baby and not knowing anyone in the town!

Originally called Ashford Vineyard Church, Chris and Nic began to gather people through mid-week groups, parties and blessing Ashford practically in various ways. They also launched Ashford Sings! as a way to get to know people and bless the community.

As more people got involved with the church, they began Sunday morning gatherings at Kingsnorth Recreation Centre. After quickly outgrowing this space, they moved to Repton Manor Primary School. 

In June 2015, we signed the lease and got the keys to The Warehouse where we still meet today, and after a lot of hard renovation work, made it home for Sunday gatherings and other activities during the week. 



In 2021, God began speaking to the pastors about His plan to reshape us as a church family and after a number of months of prayer, listening to God and sifting prophetic words, we became Pneuma Church at the beginning of May 2022.

 

The Present

Pneuma’ means ‘breath, spirit’ and we want to be a church led by the Holy Spirit into life and into bringing life!

Our aim is to bring life to the city.

 We believe that God wants people to experience life to the full, as Jesus promised, “I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly!” (John 10:10). We believe that true freedom and identity is found in the extravagant, relentless and passionate love of Father God, and we want to do all we can to make it easy for anyone to encounter Him.

God is moving among us and His felt presence is increasing – we are becoming passionate worshippers, people are saying ‘yes’ to Jesus, and baptisms, healings and miracles are becoming more regular throughout the life of Pneuma Church.

 

The Future

We love Ashford and the people in it (we often refer to it as a city, because we believe that’s how God sees it!), and this last year we have seen God show us the need to expand our localised mindset to one that takes what God is doing here to other nations.

We believe every one of us has the responsibility to disciple nations (Matthew 28) whether in our daily environments or across international boundaries, a mandate that is not reserved to some sort of designated missions team!

As part of being an equipping church we host a bi-annual Life to the City gathering and in January 2025, we launched Pneuma Church Bible School with our Foundation Course. The Bible School helps people to encounter God in the Bible and be changed by Him. The courses and workshops equip people to bring life!

 

Find out more

Pneuma Church has lots of different spaces; from Sunday mornings at The Warehouse, to various groups throughout the week, Compassion projects and The Beehive, our incredible secondhand clothing boutique and coffee shop in town. To discover more of who we are, explore this website and we would love to see you turn up to something!

Turning up and getting involved is what ‘membership’ looks like here, we love to create spaces where people feel they can belong and contribute within the family! Whether you’re following Jesus or are simply inquisitive, you are assured of a warm welcome.

Find out more about Our Culture and meet Our People.