St John the Evangelist, Blackheath, appeared in a TV advertisement once. Set on a traffic island at the end of St John's Park, Blackheath, it had the ideal Victorian Gothic door for a bridal car to arrive at, and be waved on, to drive around a few times before its occupant realised she'd been jilted. What this was supposed to make us desperate to buy, who knows, but the advertisers would be hard pushed to recognise St John's now. Over the past ten years it has had a substantial facelift and an elegant refurbishment of its interior. What was dark and inaccessible has become warm, spacious and welcoming. A new look, but the faith is familiar.

St John's was built in 1853 by the son of John Julius Angerstein whose collection of paintings formed the basis of the National Gallery in 1832. It has a tradition of evangelicalism. The memorial hall in St John's Park is dedicated to the then incumbent's daughter Elsie Marshall, a 26 year old missionary to China murdered in 1895 by 'the Vegetarian Sect'.

My visit coincided with Morning Prayer at 10.30am and two evening services running in total from 5.45 to 8pm. In the morning a screen provided words to Songs of Fellowship and one Wesley hymn and two singers led a four or five piece band, with an impressive drum kit just below the organ.

Jock and Katie Hughes were welcomed to talk about their work in Indonesia translating St Mark's gospel into local languages. They were pleased that several of their local helpers had become Christians. Outbreak of a little-reported local war has forced Jock, Katie and their four children to return to London, although Jock continues the work as best he can by fax. Their vision is to see Bible translation started in every country in the world which wants it by 2025. We were asked to pray for Jock's work and to bless and sustain Katie as she cares for the family.

From the beautifully restored, Victorian pulpit, Richard Godden (a former churchwarden) preached about Martin Luther as a young monk on his knees climbing the Scala Santa, Christ's path to meet Pilate. He described Luther's insight that God's favour is not won by striving but by faith, by the transforming knowledge that we are loved by God. Luther wrote: 'When I realised this, I felt myself absolutely born again.'

A member of the congregation said that even though the building has been refurbished, he often feels the power of the evangelical tradition in the place. In quiet parts of the services, he said, thoughts do go to matters of God and he is aware of a tradition of prayerfulness. Like some of the congregation, he comes several miles to attend St John's and has done so with his family for fifteen years: 'We occasionally think of going where we'd be needed more but we would lose a lot in terms of the children. The children have really good quality teaching.'

Louis Alexander and his wife have been regulars since 1985. He is particularly delighted at the way their four daughters have stayed within the church throughout their adolescence and beyond. "This is a church where young people can be stretched and do well," he said.

This success with young people is no accident. St John's employs 25 year old Bridget Shepherd full time as a youth worker. Her Sunday mornings are absorbed by The Crunch (10 to 13 year olds) and on Sunday evenings after the second evening service has finished, she and at least two voluntary helpers entertain over thirty very sparky 14 to 18 year olds. She is also chaplain to the Boys' Brigade, which has had a continuous history at St Johns' since 1893, and also to Year Seven (11/12 year olds) at neighbouring Blackheath Bluecoat School. There she runs a new peer support project called BIONIC: Believe It Or Not I Care. Her aim is two-fold: "I really want them to have fun and I like creating experiences they will remember for the rest of their lives". The majority of the children she deals with have parents within St John's but by no means all. Fourteen year old Liam has started coming on Sunday evenings without his parents and was keen to say, "I really like the people here".

Bridget and the St John's Youth Group

The two evening services are a recent innovation. Between 5.45 and 6.40pm there is time for guided reflection. On the day of the profile visit Ann Williamson led a short service, more liturgical than Morning Prayer had been. Ann has been with St John's nearly 13 years and is currently training for non-stipendiary ministry with SEITE. With meditations between songs led by Irene McClure and intercessions by Maggie Troy, I asked Ann if this was a church in favour of women's leadership. The answer was a strong affirmative: "St John's comes from a conservative tradition but we've sent two women to be ordained into full-time ministry and I've had nothing but support. I just love it".

Coffee and food followed before Part 2 at 7.05. After about half an hour of almost continuous singing, the incumbent Mike Marshall rolled up his sleeves and pitched into an examination of 'I believe' from the Apostles' Creed: '"What we believe is the truth, and that's important to everybody. So what is truth?'" A former teacher, Mike led us through some basic Wittgenstein illustrated by cartoons on the screen, gave a good explanation of pluralism and concluded that 'it is not being impositional or arrogant to talk to others about your belief'.

The Ministry Team has recently expanded to cope with the extra services. Besides the incumbent Mike Marshall, curate Tim Linkens, Ann Williamson and a second ordinand, there are Andrew Beswetherick (a minister in secular employment, working among those with severe learning difficulties), a Reader, an Honorary Curate and seven others. It was Mike Marshall who asked Ann to join the team in 1998.

Mike arrived with his wife Rose and three children in 1996. A former biology teacher, he and Rose met at university where she was secretary of the Christian Union and he was treasurer. Having served as curate at St Mark's, Kennington he moved to St Alban's, Streatham Park for eight years where he became Rural Dean of Tooting. He is now Rural Dean of Charlton.

His early impressions of St John's were that although many people were rightly fond of the building, it was 'really dark and forbidding'. (Streatham St Alban's enjoys a newly built church.) Fortunately reordering was under way. Perhaps as much as £500,000 had already been spent on the structure, putting the roof to rights and securing the steeple. It was time to see to the interior. Plans to insert a mezzanine floor were abandoned and the result is a light, airy nave, a broad balcony and a kitchen capable of catering for 200 diners. The atmosphere is clean and modern but sympathetic to its Victorian origins.

The project was so large that the consistory court had to approve the faculty, even though no-one objected. The process would have been even more expensive if two lawyers in the congregation had not helped free. The original estimate was £350,000, so one Sunday in July 1998 they launched an appeal. 'We needed to raise £250,000 to know we could go for it,' Mike says. By the end of that Sunday £212,000 had been given or pledged. 'It sounds spectacular,' he says, 'as if people just wrote cheques, but people had actually been preparing for six or seven years, saving in building society accounts.'

The combined cost of the earlier structural work and of the internal reordering has come to about a million pounds. In tithing this sum, the congregation has forged an extraordinary link with Tanzania. The Rt Rev Hilkiah Omindo, Bishop of Mara, happened to visit in 1994 and was asked how St John's could help. The World Bank then rated Tanzania as the world's second poorest country. Would he like a school or clinic? He replied that what he would really like was a cathedral. So a cathedral has been built in Musoma, possibly the largest widespan structure to be built by local people in East Africa. Builders, architects and quantity surveyors from St John's have visited to oversee the work and the project has expanded into well-digging and tree-planting, a training school for farmers and a goat-buying scheme.

So is it fair to say the congregation is well off? "We can't be other than what we are," Mike says, "we are in a well-heeled parish though there are many in the congregation who are on low incomes and pensions". They have dreams to reach out into a local estate by buying houses and planting teams in the area. Mike points out that "because of my own background, educated at a polytechnic and from a working class family I'm always keen to broaden our social base".

Chair of Governors of the Blackheath Bluecoat School, he says: "It's an increasingly mixed, inner city school in a fairly white, middle class area so it's got a huge role to play in Christian education. I want us to be more involved in that".

The number of African and West Indian people coming to St John's is increasing and Mike is keen to encourage people like Tunji Abimbola to play their part in leadership. Tunji joined the Ministry Team five years ago, leading and organising services. He and his wife, both Nigerians, have been with St John's for eleven years and have seen their children, now 15, 18 and 21, stay happily within the church throughout their childhoods and beyond. Tunji, a science and psychology teacher, praises "the caring nature of this church. It's warm, like a family, we're all looking out for each other. This church satisfies my yearning for Christ. We all walk together as one".

Mike is "extremely protective of some of the highly committed, high earning professionals we have" and has no time for colleagues within the church who can be quite aggressively envious of them. "I've never seen such committed and giving people as some at St John's. The last thing they need is to feel guilty about it".

St John's list of activities and home groups is too extensive to quote in full. "Don't forget the evangelistic origami," Mike jokes. In everything their watchword is 'Look up, look in, look out' - look up to God, look in to each others' needs and look out to those elsewhere.

"We run an Alpha course twice a year. It's a very useful tool but we adapt it. I am totally committed to the idea that the local church defines itself and serves its area. We are not 'an Alpha church'. We are God's people here and we meet with Him and devise our own understanding of who we are. We take anything that will help us but we recognise that's we're fairly unique here and have to adapt it. You can see I feel strongly about it". He talks about a church gradient: "Our aim is to make the gradient from outside the church to inside as shallow as possible. To have stepping stones in place to enable people, if they want to, to step into the church - and if they want, to escape as well. Wooing somebody into faith, into church is a very, very delicate operation. They come on their own terms and if you go chasing them, you don't see them for dust." The church doors are open almost every day: "I want people outside to see people constantly going in, and out again, safely. So they think one day I might see what's happening in there".

St John's was recently approached again about an advertisement in which a priest looks at his watch during a service and rushes away because he realises his film has started. Mike's response: "All they were doing was perpetuating a stereotype of what they think the church is like. They're wrong. They're perpetuating an untruth. So I invited them to come in and look at what church really is and reflect that. The church has moved on".