Just inside the M25, a few miles north of Godstone and Wychcroft, lies a church which is living proof that two into one will go.

It is literally two church buildings in one. The original church at St John's, Old Coulsdon dates from 1260 AD probably built on the foundations of a wooden Saxon church belonging to the Benedictine Abbey of Chertsey. It has the serenity that comes of continuous worship over the centuries, and there are several beautifully preserved architectural features from the 13th century. At the 8am service (1662 BCP) the fifty or so people filled the place.

When the railway reached Old Coulsdon, and commuting to and from work began to be a way of life for many people, the parish changed. A country village of 200 people in the nineteenth century became a suburb of 20,000 by the mid-twentieth, and the church needed an extension. An annexe was built out from the south aisle and was consecrated in 1959. But this was no ordinary annexe. The 'new church' is a splendid, neo-Gothic building, full of light even on a cloudy day, and its wide nave is capable of holding 200 people.

Its size might have been over-ambitious elsewhere but not in Old Coulsdon. At the 9.30am Sunday Eucharist (version A), the altar rail in the old church was used for overflow communicants, even though it was half-term and many regular families were away on holiday. Fiona Sinclair says "Old Coulsdon's very much a village, everyone knows everyone and the church is closely linked with a lot of what happens locally. There's a really good community spirit. We're the last little community before you get to town. I think that's a nice way to bring children up." The tower holds five mighty bells all made in 1675, probably the oldest ring of bells still in use in Surrey. Gill Gregson is an Ordained Local Minister (OLM) who has lived in the parish for over forty years:

"There's a lovely feeling when you walk up our path and the bells are ringing, that people have been doing this for hundreds of years, and when we're all under the turf in the churchyard, it'll still be going on."

In the churchyard the name Byron appears on some of the older grave stones but no-one can confirm whether they are anything to do with Lord Byron who wrote: 'Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after.'

I suspect that if Lord Byron haunted St John's now, he could find himself enjoying it. Not only does the fabulous screen over the altar in the new church bring to mind his words 'the God of life and poesy and light', but the congregation is full of smiles and children's laughter. Women are thoroughly involved at all levels and it's the only church I know which has its own Catering Corps. Four teams of cooks are on hand to provide home-made food whenever it is needed, whether for the Alpha group or for the civic leaders and local people who come back to the Rectory after the annual Remembrance service. Gill Gregson again: "The four teams work in rota so that the burden is not always falling on the same people. It's symptomatic of the way our congregation is all involved in supporting the mission in the church."

Their tradition of shared ministry is paying off at the moment, while they are in interregnum. Their Rector, the Rev. Stephen Maslen, retired last May. The following harvest their Curate, Johanna Brightwell, moved on too. Fortunately the team includes five Readers (one of whom, Gail Souppouris, is in her first year of training with the South East Institute for Theological Education for stipendiary ministry) and one Southwark Pastoral Auxiliary in training.

The brunt of the work does fall on Gill as the only ordained person on the team but as Christine Harding says, Gill is a 'great coper'. Gill warns fellow OLMs to be aware that they can find themselves at the helm and says, "It's fine, most of the time. We're lucky because there's always been an ethos of collaborative ministry, and the congregation's tremendously helpful." Her only slight reservation is that people might feel that she and the rest of the team are too busy at the moment to take time to listen or help. "I do miss that," she says, "but of-course there is infinite capacity for pastoral work when you're doing funerals and marriages. And we've just started doing marriages of divorced people in certain circumstances. There are lots of opportunities to be alongside people."

Later this year David Henwood will celebrate forty years as a Reader. St John's has had three incumbents in succession now who have believed in sharing their ministry. David says, "We wouldn't have got where we are without their willingness to share." Gill agrees: "It's too big a parish really to have it as a one-person band. You've got to be able to trust other people, to affirm and inspire and bring people in."

Freddie Loh became a Reader more recently, at the suggestion of the previous Rector: "I had thought about it but it's one of those things that you need somebody to tell you, just to tip you off the fence." Freddie was born in Hong Kong and settled in Old Coulsdon about twenty years ago, met his wife Jean and never looked back. "It's the people," he says. "It's one of those welcoming churches that doesn't descend upon you." He enjoys the pace of life here too, and the relief that Old Coulsdon gives from the grind of commuting to work in London.

Freddie and Jean have two children aged nine and thirteen, and they have been closely involved with the small, primary school attached to St John's. It has about 200 pupils, with one class for each school year. Jean says "All the parents just about know each other. It's very friendly." For Gill Gregson and her friend Valerie Price (currently St John's churchwarden), the school is expanding almost out of recognition. They got to know each other about 35 years ago when their children were at the school, which then had only four classes.

While I am talking to Freddie and Jean, the children's music group is tuning up for a rehearsal for the next week. Once a month they add 'a bit of difference' (Freddie says) in the Youth Communion. The chairs are moved into a circle facing the communion table, which is put in the middle, and an overhead projector is brought in.

Children are a huge and happy presence everywhere at St John's, not just Youth Communion. There are at least a hundred of them after all. Gill explains that for many people, their involvement at St John's starts with their Pram Service for pre-school children: "Usually there are about thirty-five mums or dads, grandmothers or other carers there. You can never count the children because they're all over the place. They have a story and then they parade round the church looking for lost lambs or whatever. Yes, we do teach our very small children to behave badly in church. It makes church fun and comfortable."

The Pram Service lasts forty minutes once a month on a Tuesday morning, followed by tea and coffee, and is organised by the Open Group. Fiona Sinclair came to St John's through the Pram Service;

"They make cakes at the front or something, it's a bit chaotic but it brings people who've just moved into the area into the church. It's how I started. It becomes part of your life."

Fiona, whose four children range in ages from the twenties to four years old, is a member of the Open Group: "We raise money, nearly new sales, bingo, a craft stall at Easter, and donate it to a local charity. Sometimes it goes to the church but it could just as easily be to an old people's home down the road. It's fun and it gets you to know people." Fiona was also formerly involved with the church's Bereavement Visitors Group, a group of trained listeners who keep in touch with a family by phone or visiting for an average of two years after a bereavement. Naturally, the 53 enrolled members of St John's branch of the Mothers' Union interlink and overlap with this, the Open Group, the Catering Division and almost every other aspect of church life.

About one hundred members of the congregation belong to at least one of nine thriving house groups who usually meet fortnightly for bible study or other discussion. Alpha takes place once or twice a year too and is currently in full swing. Gill says "It's a very useful basic training course and is often linked with adult confirmation." Adult does mean adult. "One of our confirmation candidates on an earlier course was 91," Gill says, "and we hope to enrol a woman in her eighties, who wants to be confirmed with her great-grandchildren."

Kath has joined the present Alpha group too. Kath is a deaf and blind lady living in Old Coulsdon who attends St John's regularly, with her poodle Sparky who often walks into church on his hind legs. A group of people who call themselves 'Friends of Kath' interpret the service to her using finger spelling, which Kath has taught them. I was sorry not to meet Kath but at the time of the profile visit she was in New Zealand visiting a relative.

Friendly support, Fiona Sinclair says, is typical of St John's. "When my friend had a bad road accident recently everybody came here for a service to pray for her. There's a really good community spirit here. "It's what the world needs. Especially now. The church generally does get a bad press; it doesn't deserve it."