Month: October 2023

Church Gate: The Size Of The Challenge

/ Steve Petch / 6 Comments

Last week I blogged about Church Gate, the next big adventure we believe God has for us as a church (click here to read about it).

This is a big deal for us and, of course, we wouldn’t be doing it if we didn’t think it was ‘mission critical’ for our calling as a church together:

  • Church Gate will be key for the work we want to do to serve the poor, including our desire to start a community grocery to bridge the gap between the FoodBank and a supermarket for the most needy in our town
  • Church Gate will provide the facilities and space we need to disciple our children and young people well. Remember, we are not baby sitting them week by week; we are equipping them to be the men and women of God He is calling them to be, so they can lead the way into the future in all areas of life and follow His call on their life.
  • Church Gate will also provide lots of space for our meetings and ministries all week long, and even has a few extra parking spaces, which is always handy to have.

Gift Days

Obviously we need to pay for Church Gate! As I said last week, we’ll be looking at mortgages, but we also all need to do our part individually so, in November, we will be holding some gift Sundays. I want to fill in a few details on that.

We will hold our gift Sundays over three weeks, on Sundays 12th, 19th and 26th of November. In case you’ve not been at Welcome Church when we’ve done this before (and the last time was a few years ago) it will be a normal Sunday meeting – with worship, kids work, teaching etc – but there’ll be a chance at the end of the morning to come forward and give, or pledge to give, to this big adventure. With that in mind we recognise that more information needs to be shared.

Next Sunday, and in the weeks to come, we’ll be giving out a printed booklet with all the information you need. It will explain:

  • WHAT we are doing
  • WHY we are doing it
  • Why we are doing it NOW (very important!)
  • HOW MUCH it will cost and
  • What we are asking YOU to do

The size of the financial challenge

People have been asking what Church Gate will cost, so here are the details:

The owners have agreed to sell Church Gate to us for three million pounds.

That may sound like a lot of money (and in many ways it is) but it’s a price our professional valuer agrees is fair for us to pay, and a lot less than where we started from. We also have to budget for additional fees and refurbishment costs, so the total cost for the project is likely be in the region of £3.5 million pounds – hopefully a bit less.

We anticipate that some of this cost will be funded through our existing savings as a church, and through a new mortgage. We’re also in faith to raise £2 million pounds over the next two years through our sacrificial giving as a church to this adventure.

The big challenge is that we need to raise the first £1 million in the next few months, in order to complete on Church Gate in early 2024, so we need to step out in big faith this November.

Time is tighter than we’d like for this project, but the opportunity really is now or never. The sellers of Church Gate have received Planning Permission to redevelop the site into flats. Were they to go ahead, the opportunity will be closed to us for good, so we need to go for it in faith now to invest in our future as a church.

What can I do today?

At this point we would ask you to do one thing: please pray. Pray that the sale moves ahead smoothly. Pray that finance comes together quickly.

Mainly though, please pray for God to speak to YOU about what he wants YOU to give.

We wouldn’t want anyone to give more than God is asking them to give, but we wouldn’t want anyone to give less than He is asking them to give either!

And remember: it’s not that we HAVE to give; it’s that we GET to give. It’s a privilege to invest in the Kingdom of God, knowing that we cannot out-give God.

Between us we have a significant amount of money to raise, but I believe we can do this as we step out in faith, so let’s go for it together. I’ll share more info in the weeks ahead.

Stay up to date with what’s happening at Welcome Church by subscribing to this blog to get it straight to your inbox each week.

Church Gate – Our Next Big Adventure

/ Steve Petch / 7 Comments

Over the last few months we’ve prayed several times about Church Gate, which is the building next door to ours. I believe this is now our next big adventure as a church!

The Story So Far

In January 2020 we opened our brand new Chapel building and, at the same time, we redeveloped our old Church building (often now referred to as ‘the front building’) to serve our various ministries, including our children’s and youth work, and to provide new offices, kitchens and more.

Unforeseen Challenges

Coming out of the pandemic, Welcome Church has grown significantly – much faster than any of us anticipated. One unforeseen problem this has caused is that, as a church with many families in it, the number of children and youth who attend each Sunday are more than the front building can accommodate.

At the moment Welcome Kids Seniors and Welcome Youth cross the road each Sunday morning to meet in ‘The Cube’ (above Useful Wood). This is a good solution for now, but we do not own that space and in time it will be redeveloped for housing.

Alongside our growth in numbers, we also have a growing focus on social action in response to Jesus’ call on us to be “good news to the poor”. One ministry we would like to start is a community grocery, bridging the gap between the food bank and a supermarket for the poorest families in our town. For many this could be a lifeline and a great way for people to connect with our church and with Jesus.

In conversation with Woking Borough Council we’ve looked at various premises in Woking, but nothing has yet been found that provides the space we need, in a venue that works for us in terms of accessibility, cost and location.

The Church Gate Solution

Church Gate, a three storey open plan office building, is next door to us, and has been empty for more than 6 years. The owners have recently received planning permission to add two extra stories to it and to develop it as residential accommodation, but we decided to contact them anyway, and they agreed to meet with us and let us look around the building.

On viewing Church Gate it quickly became apparent that it could meet our needs as a church. It could provide us with:

  • Space to serve our children’s and youth work
  • Space for a community grocery and for other social action projects in the future
  • More space for meetings and ministries all week long – both for us as a church and as a facility to serve our town
  • A few more parking spaces (always handy to have!)

In short, we believe Church Gate offers the right space for our needs, so with this in mind we shared with the owners our heart and our vision to serve the community and do good for our town. We asked them not to develop it into flats but to sell it to us instead, and they agreed to come back to us with a price.

Negotiations

Negotiations started off with a gap of several million pounds but, following a professional valuation, lots of discussion and a whole lot of prayer, last week we were able to agree on a fair price in line with the valuation, so …

… WE ARE GOING TO BUY CHURCH GATE

What’s next?

In November we will hold Gift Days as a church, and we’ll all have a chance to give financially to this exciting new adventure. Next week I’ll share more information about that.

We recognise we’re on a short time scale, but we’re also aware that this is a unique opportunity and we need to respond to it in a timely way, whilst the door is open.

These Gift Days are our big opportunity to step up and give sacrificially. Let’s give as an act of worship. Let’s give to build a better future. Let’s give to take part in what God is doing with our church at this time.

Our giving to this adventure is a chance to invest in our church, our children, our youth, the gospel, our work among the poor in our town, and the Kingdom of God, and let’s not forget it’s also an investment in our future together. Generations of this church before us have given sacrificially to get us to where we are today; now it’s our turn to step out in faith and to sow financially into the future.

In the weeks ahead I’ll share more information about the price we’ve agreed, and about what we now need to do – and there are lots of practical steps we will need to take – but at this point we only want to ask you to do one thing: to pray.

Please pray that the sale moves ahead smoothly and that the finance comes together quickly. And please pray for God to speak to YOU about what he wants YOU to give. Between us we have a significant amount of money to raise, but I believe we can do this together.

Listening to God

During the negotiations, looking at Church Gate out of my office window and praying and dreaming about what God might do, I felt God remind me of a parable Jesus told:

“The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” (Matthew 13v45-46)

That parable is not really about buildings, but I felt a whisper in my heart that, to us, Church Gate would be like that pearl of great value. I believe this is a great opportunity that God has put in front of us, and that we need to be prepared to sacrifice to get in on this adventure; it will be costly but it’s worth it, so lets go for it together. More information will follow in the weeks ahead.

Stay up to date with what’s happening at Welcome Church by subscribing to this blog to get it straight to your inbox each week.

October 2023 News Updates

/ Steve Petch / Leave a comment

This week I want to share a few Welcome Church news updates, in case you missed them

A New Website

We’ve just launched our brand new Welcome Church website and we’re really pleased with it! You can find it at www.welcomechurch.uk. The website is not only new in terms of its content, it also has a brand new website address. If you do accidentally try to access the old website it will forward you to the new one automatically, at least for a while.

Our church email addresses have also changed, so if you previously e-mailed someone on name@allwelcome.uk, you now need to use name@welcomechurch.uk. Again, if you use the wrong e-mail address it will be forwarded for a short while, but not forever.

A lot of work went into getting the new website up and running, and we’re really pleased with the result. Huge thanks go to everyone involved. The site been checked quite extensively, but if you do find any errors, bad links, typos or other problems, please let us know – there are bound to be some!

Kids Work

From the end of Half Term (Sunday 29th October) Welcome Tots, Welcome Kids Juniors and Welcome Kids will be starting earlier each Sunday, so your kids can go there straight away if you want them to. You can drop them off from 10 minutes before each meeting starts (no earlier please!)

These changes will help us serve our kids well, and also allow more room for adults to join us without feeling that the meetings are full, especially at the 11am meeting. It will also allow the worship times to flow uninterrupted. Welcome Kids Seniors and Welcome Youth will be with us for the whole of the worship time for now, and will go out to their own meetings after that.

Because the kids will now be in their groups a bit longer each week, we want to encourage parents to collect them promptly when the meeting has finished. Thank you in advance for this, and also a very big thank you to all our kids and youth workers – you are fantastic and massively appreciated. 🙂

The Alpha Course

Our Alpha Course is now up and running with 28 guests in attendance on week one, and some others expected to join from week 2. Please pray for the success of the course and for people to grow in faith as they explore the big questions of life together.

Baptisms

On Sunday 5th November we’ll be baptising several people at each of our Sunday meetings. It’s still not too late to join them and be baptised if you’re a Christian and have not yet been baptised since you came to faith in Jesus – please just chat to us.

Please also pray for those who are being baptised on the 5th, and let’s be on the front foot to welcome the many guests who will be there and to serve them well.

Car Parking

You may have spotted that, due to new tenants moving in, Phillips Court is no longer available for us to use for parking on a Sunday morning. Instead the Red, Yellow and Blue shoppers car parks are available. These are just a short distance away, and the walk is largely under cover.

If you put your number plate into the relevant ‘pad’ in our building (the pads are very clearly marked) then you will get your parking for free 🙂. We recommend putting your number plate in on arrival rather than waiting until the meeting has ended.

Buildings

Thanks to all who have prayed about our plan to buy Church Gate, the building next door to us. We want to use it to create more space for kids and youth each Sunday, as well as to provide meeting rooms and office space to serve all that we do all week long. We would also like it as a space to start a community grocery that will serve those in need in our town, and it could perhaps house some of our other social action ministries too. The alternative is to extend on our own site, and we’ve been developing plans for this in case Church Gate doesn’t come our way.

Lots of people have been asking for updates on this issue, and this coming Sunday (15th Oct) at Welcome Church I will be sharing the latest news. Please make sure you’re there at our 9am or 11am meeting to hear what’s been happening!

God can do amazing things

Eph 3v20-21: “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

Let’s be in faith for all God wants to do in and through us as a church, and let’s be praying for Jesus to be glorified in our town. He can do immeasurably more than all we can ask or even imagine.

Thanks for reading.

Stay up to date with what’s happening at Welcome Church by subscribing to this blog to get it straight to your inbox each week.

We Are An Eco Church

/ Steve Petch / 2 Comments

God created an amazing world for us to live in and He gave humanity responsibility to tend and care for it well; we are all called to be faithful stewards of creation. Although the beauty of creation can sometimes take our breath away, we only have to look at the news to see that sadly we don’t always care for our world well. Challenging and complex environmental issues often dominate both the headlines and the hearts of an emerging generation, and it can be hard to know how best to respond as a church.

For some time now, Helen, one of our office team volunteers, has been looking at what steps we could take to do better at this, and this week I want to update you on some exciting news: we have been formally recognised as an Eco Church!

The Eco Church scheme is run by A Rocha and supported by Tearfund and other well-known Christian agencies. You can read more about it by clicking on the link above or on the image below. The scheme is robust, Christian-faith based, and the ‘go-to’ scheme for churches in the UK.

We are pleased to have received the Bronze Award

This is a great first step for us, and we’re making plans to go further, recognising the Biblical mandate that God has given us to care for our world.

Why should we care about this as Christians?

As a church we are committed to being Biblical, rather than simply responding to the latest trends in our culture. With this in mind, on Sunday, Christopher will continue our ‘FAITHFUL’ preaching series, a series that’s all about stewardship. He will be looking at what it means to be Faithful With The Planet. Make sure you’re there to hear what the Bible has to say on this hot topic issue.

What does it mean to be an Eco Church?

The Eco Church Bronze award recognises five areas of church life that we’ve been working on in different ways over a long period of time:

  1. Buildings: our buildings are built to high environmental specifications, including such things as insulation, heating, toilets, hand dryers, the building materials themselves and more. When the houses that used to be on the land where the chapel now stands were demolished, much of the material was recycled – especially the bricks. We are also hoping soon to secure a grant for solar panels to be fitted to the roof of the chapel – watch this space
  2. Land: we’ve been caring for the land around our church building well, including planting flowers that attract wildlife and providing cycle racks. Did you know that we even have two electric car charging points?
  3. Worship + Teaching: We will continue to teach into this topic as it arises from Scripture, especially this coming Sunday
  4. Lifestyle: this includes how the church invests its money (over 50% ethically), and some other actions taken by individuals in the church
  5. Community and Global Engagement: this covers lots of things from food usage to the ‘Toilet Twinning’ scheme, to engagement with the Local Council. On the ‘food’ issue, we serve a lot of coffee as a church. When we chose our coffee supplier, a couple of years ago, we chose very carefully. Indigo Valley coffee is fair trade, ethically sourced and carbon neutrally roasted. They also help to support ‘Hope for Justice’, who are working to end modern day slavery

Our Ultimate Goal

Whilst we’re excited to have this award, we know it isn’t our ultimate goal. Our goal is to see life transformed through Jesus; both our own life, and the lives of those around us. I believe that God will work through us as we act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with Him, showing ourselves to be faithful stewards in every area of our lives including this one.

The Bible teaches us that Jesus will renew this world when he returns. All creation is waiting for the day when He’s revealed. In the meantime let’s remember that Jesus told us if we are faithful with little, He will trust us with much.

Over the next year we hope to apply for the Silver Award, so watch this space – and please get in touch with Helen in the office if you have skills and expertise in this area and would like to get involved!

Stay up to date with what’s happening at Welcome Church by subscribing to this blog to get it straight to your inbox each week.