Month: September 2024

EAT, PRAY, LOVE: A Simple Strategy for Impacting Lives This Autumn

/ Steve Petch / Leave a comment

Hi everyone! This is Dub Everitt, Outreach Pastor at Welcome Church. I’m jumping in on Steve’s blog this week to share our exciting Autumn outreach strategy:

We’re currently in the middle of a powerful preaching series titled “Loving People Towards Jesus.” Throughout this series, we’ve been reminded that Jesus is passionate about reaching people who don’t yet know Him—and He calls each of us to play a part in that mission. We are called to reach out in love, on His behalf, to the people around us.

In previous years, our church has hosted incredible invitational events like Fun Days, Firework Nights, Carol Services, and our special Invite Sundays. These “Hop, Skip & Jump” events connected hundreds of people to Welcome Church, with many deciding to explore faith further through Alpha or by attending our Sunday services.

This year, however, we’re shifting gears. Instead of large invitational events, we’re focusing on empowering each one of you to engage personally with the people in your world through a simple and memorable approach:

EAT, PRAY, LOVE

No, we’re not talking about the book or the movie! These three memorable words are designed to help us all focus on a clear, three-step outreach strategy for this term.

1. EAT…

… at A Taste of Alpha and during our Autumn Alpha Course
This year, we’re inviting everyone at Welcome Church to experience Alpha for themselves at a special event called A Taste of Alpha. It’s a fantastic opportunity to enjoy a mocktail, watch an episode from the new Alpha Film Series, and discuss it over a delicious two-course meal.

This event gives you firsthand experience of what your friends will encounter if you invite them to Alpha. We’ve already seen hundreds attend, and if you missed it, there are limited spots available for Wednesday, October 2nd. Click here to book your place for 2nd October

Once you’ve experienced A Taste of Alpha, we’d love for you to invite a friend to Try Alpha on Wednesday, October 16th—the first week of our eight-week Alpha Course. Your friend can check it out and, if they enjoy it, they’re welcome to continue for the remaining weeks! Click here to book for Try Alpha

2. PRAY…

… for your friends
Many of us have already made a list of three or more people we’re praying for daily. If you haven’t done so yet, take a moment now—ask God to bring to mind three people He wants you to pray for daily, and write their names down.

It’s a powerful thing to remember that God not only hears our prayers but also moves in the lives of the people we lift up to Him. Before you speak to your friends about God, speak to God about your friends!

3. LOVE…

… your friends towards Jesus
Sometimes, sharing Jesus with others can feel like a daunting task. But perhaps a better way to think about it is this: Jesus has given us people to love towards Him.

During His time on earth, Jesus poured out love, kindness, mercy, and compassion to everyone He encountered. Now, He asks us to reflect that same love to those around us, showing them what His love looks like in action.

In fact, He’s equipped us for this! As Romans 5v5 reminds us,

“God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us“

This promise is true for each one of us who follows Jesus—including you!

So, let’s live lives of compassionate love and kindness towards the friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, and anyone else God places in our path. Let’s trust that through us, they will experience Jesus’ love—and that this love will be a step toward their own encounter with Him.

Jesus is deeply passionate about our town and the people around us. He’s placed you and me in their lives to be a blessing and a signpost toward Him.

Let’s all commit to EAT, PRAY & LOVE this autumn, and watch as God does amazing things!

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Getting A Taste Of Alpha

/ Steve Petch / Leave a comment

As part of our Autumn programme this year, we’re inviting everyone in Welcome Church to attend one of our ‘Taste Of Alpha’ evenings.

I attended the first one last night 🙂

These evenings are a chance for us all to experience what the first evening of an Alpha course is like, building our confidence to make invitations to our Autumn Alpha course which starts with ‘Try Alpha’ on October 16th. (In case anyone is unsure, Alpha is an 8 week course that we run, and is intended for people who want to explore what the Christian faith is all about)

What I experienced

On arrival the front hall was packed with people from Welcome Church who’d signed up for the first Taste of Alpha experience. We were greeted with ‘Mocktails’, before being seated on pre-arranged tables, finding our name on a wedding style seating plan. Dub then welcomed us all and introduced Nnamdi, who led us through the full experience of the first night of an Alpha course.

The evening consisted of:

  • A excellent two course meal, with every table hosted by friendly table leaders who quickly got us chatting (my thanks to Edward and NG on my table)
  • A game of ‘Kahoot!’ – an interactive quiz, which our table sadly didn’t win
  • Some contemporary live music from Steve B on guitar and vocals
  • A screening of the new style week 1 Alpha video
  • Some table discussions built around two thought provoking questions

We then finished with a short chat from Dub about what we’d just experienced, and the chance to pray together on our tables and to provide feedback on the evening.

My observations

As someone who’s been very familiar with Alpha over a number of years, and who’s even spoken on several past courses, I wondered if I really needed to be there – after all, I already know all about Alpha, right???

Wrong!

I came away with three key observations:

First: I’m incredibly proud of our team. The evening was well run and brilliantly organised in every aspect. There was high quality food, the seating had been well thought through and the whole ‘production’ was great. Everything was designed to put you at ease. I want to say well done to everyone involved in making it happen. If you’d brought a friend along, you really would be proud to say that this was your church.

Second: The Alpha videos have changed A LOT, and all for the better. They were always good, but no longer is it Nicky Gumble preaching at you for 30 minutes. The videos are bright, clear and well put together with a variety of people (including Nicky) communicating the message in different ways, with regular pauses for discussion on key questions. I found myself quickly drawn in and would have been comfortable for any friend I’d invited to watch them. This change of the style to the Alpha course’s content is the biggest thing I spotted, and it’s very positive change.

Third: It actually made we want to do Alpha again! It made me feel like, if I wasn’t a Christian already, I’d definitely have wanted to book in for the actual course. I even found the questions and discussion times to be personally thought provoking again, and I went home with a few things to think about – I really didn’t expect that!

In summary, any friends that we bring along to the ‘Try Alpha’ evening on October 16th are almost certainly going to want to sign up for the whole course. In fact, the biggest takeaway for me was this:

we can safely invite people to our church’s Alpha Course with confidence that they will have a positive experience and we won’t regret bringing them

To be honest, I think I knew that anyway, but now I’ve seen it and experienced it for myself.

What’s next?

There are 3 more chances to experience A Taste Of Alpha, on each of the next three Wednesdays. If you haven’t signed up yet, please follow this link to do so. One quick warning, the final evening is almost full.

And let’s keep on praying for our friends so that we’re ready to make lots of invitations to the actual Alpha course which starts with ‘Try Alpha’ on Wednesday 16th October.

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    What Did You Read This Summer?

    / Steve Petch / Leave a comment

    The new term is well under way, our prayer week is almost over and the summer holidays are starting to feel like a distant memory, especially with this recent cold snap. Before I forget I wanted to mention three books I read this summer that I would recommend to us all:

    1. “Jesus Through The Eyes of Women” by Rebecca McLaughlin

    In this book Rebecca explores some of the life-changing accounts of women in the Bible who met Jesus, and what we can learn about Jesus from them. It’s easy to read, very encouraging and the chapters have great discussion questions at the end. This could actually work well for a Life Group to read chapter by chapter and discuss the questions together, or just read it yourself like I did.

    2. “Tis Mercy All” by Natalie Williams

    Natalie runs Jubilee Plus and is based in Hastings UK. She is well known to some of us at Welcome Church. Her latest book is on the topic of God’s outrageous mercy and what it means for us to love mercy and to be mercy bringers in a world that lacks it. It’s thoughtful, practical and very applicable to our daily lives and our work places. When I’d finished this one, Jo read it too and she also loved it. I’m hoping Natalie will come and preach for us at some point in 2025.

    3. “Born Again This Way” by Rachel Gilson

    In this powerful and personal book, Rachel describes her own unexpected journey of first ‘coming out’ and of then coming to faith in Jesus, and what came next. She addresses the questions this raises for every Christian, but most especially for Christians who live with same sex attraction. Christopher and I heard Rachel speak recently at an event we attended and, to be honest, her session was the highlight for us both.

    Don’t forget you can get all of these from Origin Books in Woking.

    Happy reading!

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    Welcome Back

    / Steve Petch / 1 Comment

    September is here and a new church year has begun – WELCOME BACK!

    Despite it being a quieter time overall, lots of fun things happened over the summer including Newday (for the youth) and Commission Festival (for us all), and of course the final parts of our preaching series on the book of Exodus. I also heard about Life Groups having fun with BBQ’s and various trip to beaches and parks. Whatever you got up to I hope you had some time to relax.

    Most of what’s coming up at church this term can be found in the new purple book that you can pick up on a Sunday morning, and it’s also all in the online diary on the website and in the ChurchSuite app, but I wanted to highlight three things as the new term begins:

    1. Commission Festival

    We had a fantastic time as a church this summer at Commission Festival. The weather was kind to us overall, and it was great chance to hang out together and spend time with people we often only see in passing on a Sunday. We cooked and ate together as a church this year, and the food was truly amazing, so I want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who helped to make it happen. I loved the Karaoke and the Silent Disco and, although my team didn’t win this year, the Quiz Night was a lot of fun too.

    On the more ‘spiritual’ side of things there were several helpful messages preached at the Festival, most especially by Ranjit from India, but for me the outstanding element of it all was the worship times, led in large part by our very own Jo and featuring a few other familiar faces too.

    I want to say thank you to everyone who was there and, for those who couldn’t attend in person, I hope the live stream was useful.

    At the end of the Festival we discovered that it won’t now be back until 2026 so, with that in mind, in 2025 we will be holding our very own…

    … Welcome Church Big Weekend Away!

    It will be held over the Bank Holiday weekend at the end of August so do put that weekend in your diary now. We’ve already booked a venue for this event, in The New Forest, and details on how to book your place will follow soon – watch this space.

    2. Prayer Week

    Next week will be our prayer week to kick off the new term, and all the details for getting involved with that are in the pictures below. Do join us for as much as you can – there’s no better way to start the new church year.

    The week will culminate in a Prayer and Vision evening at 7pm next Sunday (15th September) so do join us if you can. We’ll be talking about all that’s coming up in the year ahead and sharing our hopes and aspirations for Welcome Church, all in a context of worship and prayer.

    3. Loving People Towards Jesus

    Our new preaching series is now also underway, and I’m looking forward to preaching part 2 this coming Sunday. To tie in with our prayer week I’ll be talking about The Power Of Prayer – so make sure you don’t miss it.

    Outreach and evangelism is going to be a focus this term as we run up towards our Carol Services on Dec 15th. Let’s all get on board with what God is doing at Welcome Church – I’m looking forward to another great year together.

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