Month: July 2023

Thankful For Another Year Of God’s Blessings

/ Steve Petch / 2 Comments

Most of the local schools finish on Thursday or Friday this week and the Summer Holidays begin. For those who are going away over the summer, I hope you have a great time and get to enjoy some sunshine and relaxation.

Church life seems to follow the school calendar, so in many ways July marks the end of the church year for us, although we do have both Newday and Commission Festival to come in August 🙂

We have so much to be grateful to God for as a church over the last year; so many reasons to be thankful. We also have a lot to look forward to in September and the year to come.

A Date For Your Diary

On Sunday 17th September at 7pm, we will have a ‘Prayer and Vision’ evening to kick off the new church year. This should help to bring everyone up to speed with what’s ahead as we share the plans, dreams and aspirations we have for the coming year, including any building news there is to share by then. Please put the date in your diary now, so you can be there.

Some thanks and some changes

You may have been with us recently when we marked changes in the leadership of some of our ministries. In case you missed it:

  • Nigel and Bren have finished leading our Sunday Welcome Teams, and Tony L has taken on the role going forwards
  • Marcus and Sharon have finished leading Brew Crew, which will now be led by Tarn and Cindy
  • Tanya E has finished leading Welcome Kids Juniors, with Jo M now taking on the mantle
  • Darren has now handed the leadership of Welcome Kids over to Harriet
  • Ben and Becca C have finished a very faithful season leading Welcome Youth into incredible growth and fruitfulness over several years. A new team has emerged for the future of Welcome Youth, with James H, Noah and Lucy, Ben and Lila, Lauren and Crispy all taking it forward together.

There are some changes in our Church Office team too:

  • Bruno (originally from Brazil) is about to finish his internship year and is off to university (in Oxford)
  • Juliet B (who used to live in Oxford) has finished her role as Comms Manager and is off to join Luke at Casa Cruzeira (in Brazil)

To all of these people we want to say a huge THANK YOU. All of them are greatly appreciated.

Life moves in seasons so it really is okay to change the areas we serve or lead in when the right time comes along, and don’t forget we’re looking to recruit for the vacant ‘comms’ position, so please feel free to get in touch about that.

Summer Socials

I enjoyed our Welcome Church summer social recently, with over 600 of us gathering for the summer picnic at West End. The sun shine and the ice cream van was certainly kept busy. Personally I enjoyed chatting with a number of people I haven’t had a chance to chat with before.

Additionally, on Tuesday evening this week, we gathered with our Eldership Team, Office Team (staff and volunteers), Strategic Leadership Team and Trustee Team for a Summer Social to say thanks for all they’ve done over the last year. James and Helen Heather hosted us really well, and it was great to be in a room of such faithful people (and for those who couldn’t make it, we missed you)

I hope you would want to join me in saying a big thank you to them all as well.

Summer Blogging

Thanks to all who take the time to read my blog week by week; I hope you find it helpful and informative about life in Welcome Church. Please do keep on praying for all we do as a church and for those who lead.

I’ll take a break from blogging over the summer now until Commission Festival at the end of August. Hope to see you there.

Important and Urgent! PLEASE PRAY!

/ Steve Petch / 6 Comments

Hello Welcome Church. We have a very important prayer request and would ask you ALL to please pray, pray and pray again.

Yesterday Mike Deavin and myself, along with Darren Forsdyke and Dub Everitt, met with the representative of the owner of a significant building near to us in Woking. We had a look around the building and discussed how we might be able to get use of it for us as a church, perhaps by buying it.

After viewing the building I explained all that we do to serve our community and to help those in need around us. I explained how the church exists to bring hope to people. I explained how we need more space for all that God is doing through us. I explained our calling to be good news to our town and to serve the poor. I explained that we wanted this building to enable us to continue what we do and to enable us to do even more.

If we were able to take ownership, it would be a significant game changer for us as a church, enabling so many things we want to do to serve the poor and carry out our social action programme, including space for some new initiatives we are thinking of such as a community grocery. It might also release space for our children’s and youth work, preparing us for the day that the Annex (The Cube) is redeveloped.

It would not be right at this stage to say what or where this building is (so please don’t even ask) but all four of us all came away feeling that this could be something God is leading us into. The representative we met with is now going away to speak to the owner to see if there is a way forward, and if so at what cost.

Please pray:

  • That God would give us favour with the owner and his representative
  • That God would open this door to us so that we can bring even more salt and light to this town, and serve our community well, especially at this time of growing need
  • That we can take ownership of this building for a fair price
  • That finance would be released to make this possible

I will tell you more when I’m able to, but as you pray please be open to what God might say to you and please share that with us.

At this time of need I believe God has a big calling on us as a church to bring the good news of the Kingdom of God in all we do. Why not stop what you’re doing and pray right now?

Thank you in advance

Some Important Things To Pray About – July 2023

/ Steve Petch / Leave a comment

Hello lovely Welcome Church people! We would value your prayers this month for the following key things:

1. Buildings

We’re keen to work out how to create more space for our growing kids and youth work. On Sunday mornings we’re currently relying on The Annex (THE CUBE!) for extra space. The Annex is great, but we don’t own it and it will be redeveloped at some point, so we need to either build or buy a more permanent solution.

Mike Deavin and I met with the architect of our current building recently, and he’s looking at what’s possible on our site. We want to find a solution that will serve the needs of our young people, and also serve the church and the wider community all week long.

We love and value our young people and want to serve them well, so please be praying for wisdom and a clear way forward. I’m excited to see what doors God will open for us.

2. Newday

At the end of July our youth will be heading off to the annual ‘Newday Youth Festival’ at the Norfolk Showground in Norwich 🎪. This year it runs from Monday 31st July to Friday 4th August. So far we have around 80 young people booked to attend. Each year Newday helps our youth to grow in their faith, building solid foundations for the future.

Please pray:

  • That our youth stay safe and have a great time
  • That they encounter God and grow in their faith
  • For the leaders and the many helpers who are taking them and serving them during the event (they need our prayers! 🙂)
  • For the practical arrangements (For example, just this week the coach company we booked announced that they’ve gone bankrupt … 🚌 … we’ve got time to solve that problem, but we’d love to avoid any more last minute headaches or unforeseen problems)

3. Commission Festival

Commission Festival is on the Bank Holiday weekend at the end of August ⛺️⛺️⛺️

We’ll be joining with Commission churches from around the UK for times of worship and teaching, and a whole lot of other fun and games too. This event helps build our togetherness as a church and as family of churches. It connects us to our Apostolic mission around the world, and it also serves our children and young people well.

We currently have around 370 people from Welcome Church booked in, which is more than we’ve ever taken to an event like this before. For us it’s a bit like we’re running a festival within the festival!

It’s still not too late to book in and join us (click here for details) and don’t forget you can get a 40% discount if you sign up to serve.

A LOT of people from Welcome Church are either serving at the Festival, or serving our church site at the Festival in a range of different ways. I can’t possibly name them all, but each one is greatly appreciated.

Please pray:

  • For the event to go really well and for God to move powerfully
  • For the weather – we’d like lots of sunshine please ☀️
  • For Darren, our Ops Director, who is leading the delivery of this brand new Festival for Commission, working with their staff team and an event management company. It’s been a massive undertaking and he’s gone above and beyond to get this done
  • For Richard who, along with an awesome team from our church, is leading the operational delivery of our Welcome Church site at the Festival
  • For Jo, who leads four worship team and is also leading the worship for the event (alongside Sean from City Gate Church, Bournemouth)
  • For Harriet who is co-leading ‘Unique’, a ministry for children at the Festival who have additional needs
  • For Dub, Meg, and Robin and Anna who are all responsible for various seminars
  • For myself – I’m responsible for anchoring the adult meetings and I’m also preaching on the Saturday evening

If you have any questions about the festival, please do ask. One more thing:

Do you want to go to the Festival for free?

If so, Compassion UK are looking for some outgoing, faith filled and friendly volunteers to help on the Compassion stand at the Festival. In return they will provide a free ticket for the event along with your food and any travel expenses. All you need to bring is yourself, your camping equipment, and faith in what God can do.

If you want to know more about this opportunity please let us know in the church office and we will put you in touch, but please don’t leave it too late!

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