Launch Sunday … Welcome Church, We Have Lift Off!

January 20, 2020January 20, 2020 / Steve Petch / 2 Comments

On Sunday (19th Jan 2020) Welcome Church marked the official launch of our brand new building in the heart of Woking. We were delighted to see so many people there to celebrate with us.

Just over 1,200 people attended across the two meetings, and this represents a new ‘high water mark’ for the church. We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who was there including friends old and new and, whether you were there or not, everyone is warmly invited to come and join us next Sunday at 9am or 11am.

So much to pack in

It was a fast paced morning:

Our worship team kicked us off in brilliant style with some vibrant worship
We then remembered some of our 140 year history of buildings, looking back at our journey so far and forward to our future vision
We heard from Paul Ginever, the architect who designed the new building
The Mayor of Woking, Councillor Beryl Hunwicks, spoke about the importance of community and working together
At the 11am meeting Jonathan Lord MP, Member of Parliament for Woking, was present to share some very kind words of encouragement
Then Steve Blow, the Finance Director for Compassion UK, presented Welcome Church with a display board to mark the support given to mothers and babies in Togo through our partnership with them

My Favourite Thing From Sunday 🙂

You can listen to that part of our meeting by clicking here.

Welcome Stories

This week also marked the start of our six week ‘Welcome Stories’ series. Many of us were deeply moved watching Mike’s Story, which showed the difference that Jesus has made to his life, helping him to get free from depression and more. You can watch his powerful story here:

This video should play, but if not please click here to view it via our church website

Towards the end of the meeting I talked about a question, the answer to which profoundly shapes our lives and daily actions:

“What do you think God is like?”

This talk was based on Jesus’ story of The Prodigal Son, and you can hear it by clicking here. For me, it was a morning to remember.

Please come again

I want to invite everyone who reads this to come and join us at Welcome Church over the next five weeks. We will be continuing our Welcome Stories series, and there will be another powerful Welcome Story video each Sunday.

Consider some fascinating facts about how, on average, we spend our lives…

We sleep for over 20 years of our lives
We watch TV for over 10 years of our lives
We spend 5 years 9 months in some form of transportation
We spend 7 ½ years eating and drinking

Why not spend 7 ½ hours over these next five weeks joining us for this Welcome Stories series? It will be a great way to brighten up these gloomy January and February Sunday mornings!

Finally, here are some photos from Sunday morning to enjoy:

New Building, New Life

January 15, 2020 / Steve Petch / 1 Comment

This Sunday is the launch of our new Welcome Church building, and what an exciting day it will be. We’ve had a couple of practice runs over the last two Sundays, and I’m anticipating a great weekend.

Let me say up front, if you are reading this blog and you don’t usually come to Welcome Church, please do join us on Sunday at 9am or 11am. There will be free coffee and pastries and we promise a warm welcome for all. Just come as you are; everyone is welcome.

If you need somewhere to park then please head to Philips Court where we have free parking spaces available. The entrance to Philips Court is to the left of the Fire Station on Goldsworth Road (Postcode: GU21 6LE). Stewards will cheerfully direct you on arrival.

Here is a short video with all the details, please do give it a watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_R4ALhj4gY&app=desktop

The video should be visible above, if it’s not then please click here to view it.

Ahead of Sunday, here are a few pointers and encouragements from me …

Let’s look out for every guest:

It can be nerve racking for anyone turning up at church for the first time, so let’s help everyone feel welcome. There will great coffee and warm pastries available before and after both meetings – let’s make sure that guests get to them first, or that we offer to bring something over for them. Some guests may be looking for the children’s work or the toilets – let’s be ready to show them the way. Perhaps you might offer to sit with someone who looks new.

In addition to those you will be bringing yourself, we have a number of ‘VIP’ guests coming including Borough Councillors, the Mayor, our Local MP, the architect, some of the building Contractors, local media and more. Please do speak to them and please help to make everyone feel at home.

Let’s invite people:

Dub wrote about how to do that on this blog last week. You can read that here. Remember, people are very interested in the new building and want to see it. Many will come along if asked. Let’s go for it in faith.

Let’s fill up from the front and fill up the rows:

We have a lovely big building and it’s going to be fairly full on Sunday. One way to serve people well is to fill up from the front and to fill up the rows, not leaving big gaps. It’s a simple thing that we can all do to show love for others.

Let’s pray:

Whilst the building is beautiful and (in my opinion) impressive, we really want people to be impressed with Jesus. Let’s be praying through this week for God’s presence in everything and his protection over everything.

One more thing: another word about parking

As there will be many guests this week, if you belong to Welcome Church and are not bringing or arriving with a guest then perhaps for this one week, if you are physically able, you might consider parking in Victoria Way Car Park and walking across. We can validate your ticket so you get free parking. This will leave the nearby spaces free for our guests.

If you are serving at both meetings then please do park at Pulse on Cherry Street (GU21 6EE) as usual.

A Day To Remember

January 8, 2020January 9, 2020 / Steve Petch / Leave a comment

We had our first Sunday meetings in our new Welcome Church building in the heart of Woking this week, and what a great day it was!

Around 750 people attended across the two morning meetings, and some of the highlights for me included:

The sense of joy and excitement after so long waiting for a new building
Seeing so many people from our church gathered across the two meetings
The excellent coffee and refreshments (thank you Marcus, Sharon and team)
The top notch parking arrangements that came together and worked so well (thank you Richard and team)
Embarrassing the awesome Mike Deavin by getting him to sit on the stage in an armchair with a blanket whilst I preached (thank you Mike)
The amazing worship times … our musicians and sound team were absolutely ON IT! (Thank you team)

I also enjoyed gathering in the evening to pray around the whole site.

An extra special thank you goes to Charles C for the huge amount of time he put in to make sure that everything worked in terms of sound, lights and visuals.