Laura Lock

Dip COT, MRCOT

Tutor in Theology

Email: l.lock@spurgeons.ac.uk

Laura Lock is co-founder of Enabled Leaders – a ministry that enables, develops, and supports church leaders via leadership training, Learning Hubs, support groups, coaching, mentoring and more.

Laura co-delivered yearly lectures on leadership at Spurgeon’s College for three years with her husband, Adrian, from 2019-2021. In 2022, Laura and Adrian were appointed Teaching Fellows at Spurgeon’s College as part of a collaborative partnership between the College and Enabled Leaders and were asked to develop a new Unit on Effective Christian Leadership for the BA programme, which they have lectured on for the past two years. Since 2020, they have also been offering ‘Leadership Hubs’ to Spurgeon’s graduates to support them in their first years after graduation. Laura also leads a support group for women ministers and a peer supervision group for Biblical Counsellors.

Laura served as a church leader at Streatham Baptist Church between 2019 – 2022, after 35+ years professional leadership in mental health Occupational Therapy, rising to senior NHS management between 2010-2018. She gained Professional Merit and Lifetime Achievement awards for her national leadership of the Royal College of Occupational Therapist’s Eating Disorders Forum between 2002-2018. This included university lecturing and advising national organisations such as NHS England, Royal College of Psychiatrists and Care Quality Commission due to her pioneering research, textbook publications, organising and presenting at several conferences/Masterclasses and developing a specialist assessment tool which is now used internationally. She was also Clinical Training Lead for Beat, the UK Eating Disorders charity.

Laura’s church leadership experience includes leadership and LifeGroup leader training, Biblical Counselling discipleship, risk management, ministerial recruitment, complex decision-making, safeguarding, leading services, occasional preaching, mental health training and more. She helped lead a church plant, developed a spiritual health and growth survey, contributed to discipleship and racial justice strategy and more. She also spent 3½  years in Youth With A Mission in Amsterdam and Lebanon and led an evangelistic mobile theatre touring UK and Denmark.

Laura loves running, walking, kayaking, painting, and relaxing with family and friends but she is passionate about effective church leadership and discipleship.

Leadership and discipleship are all about enabling people, which is Laura’s professional expertise informed by a wide range of mental health training and leadership experience both in secular and church settings.