I hope you’re enjoying our new preaching series on Romans – I think we’re off to a great start.
This Sunday at Welcome Church we have a guest speaker, and he won’t be speaking from Romans. He’s a church planter from a context of persecution and this means that, for security reasons, we won’t be able to livestream our Sunday morning meeting as we normally do, or post the message on the internet afterwards. Please let me encourage you to be there in person if at all possible.
Our guest will be speaking at both the 9am and 11am meetings, and we’ll also gather for a prayer meeting at 6pm (All welcome. Why not bring your kids and teach them to pray?) where he’ll share some more stories, and help us to pray for what’s going on in his part of the world. This means that even those serving on kids and youth on Sunday morning this week will get a chance to hear him speak and connect to what’s going on.
I look forward to seeing you at the weekend.
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I know it’s a bit late to say it, but this is my first Welcome Church blog post of 2025! Thanks for reading this far 🙂
We had a great Christmas and New Year season at Welcome Church. I talked about our Carol Services in a previous post, and this year we also introduced a Watchnight Celebration as a brand new event on New Year’s Eve. It was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to next year already. Put it in your diary now!
New Year’s Eve at Welcome Church
Staff Team Updates
We have some important changes happening within our church staff team this year.
As the church grows, so do the demands on our team, and we’ve certainly felt the strain of being understaffed in 2024. If you haven’t worked for a church I know it’s hard to imagine what people do all day, but believe me: we are incredibly busy.
For clarity, Welcome Church has more than doubled in size since I arrived 7 years ago, but the employed team is smaller now than it was back then. Everyone is running flat out, and we’ve only survived thanks to some very kind and committed office volunteers who we appreciate so much.
I’d like to share four updates:
First: Jonathan and Sabrina – Leadership Trainees
Jonathan and Sabrina’s time with us will come to an end in June this year, giving us roughly five more months to enjoy and appreciate their contribution. They’re currently praying about their next steps, which are complicated by some VISA challenges. Let’s support them in prayer as they seek God’s will for the future.
Second: Dean – Pastoral Care
Dean, one of our elders, has been working full-time on staff for more than 10 years now. Starting from January 20th, he’ll reduce his hours to three days a week, returning to his passion for architecture on the other two days. In time, he may step out of his staff role entirely. This creates a gap in pastoral care that we’ll need to address.
These first two changes further stretch an already understaffed team. Recruitment will be essential this year, and details on that will follow at the right time. Watch this space 😮
Third: Organisational Leadership
To help the church thrive into the future, we need to strengthen our organisational leadership, which is all about how we steward and align all of our resources to fulfil our vision effectively. This will require some big-picture thinking and also some adjustments to some of our policies, procedures, and ways of working.
To address this, after discussions with the Eldership Team and Trustees, I’ve invited Robin W to step into a new role on an interim basis. Starting immediately, Robin will work two days a week over the next year, focusing on reshaping our organisational leadership. His work will also help us define the future shape of the staff team and help to refine how we operate as a growing church. Part of Robin’s success will be that he replaces himself at the right time and steps back out of the role.
This is an unexpected but exciting step for Robin, and he feels God has been leading him to this role for a while now. I’m eager to make the most of this opportunity to prepare us for the future. It also means he’s stepping back from being a Trustee for the next season. In a business this role might get called Chief Administrative Office, but as a church we’re giving it the title ‘Executive Pastor’ – which leads into the fourth update…
Fourth: Christopher Hawes – New Job Title
Christopher has held the title Executive Pastor for a couple of years, although his role was very different from the one Robin will be taking on and we used the title in a completely different way. To better reflect his actual responsibilities, Christopher’s new job title will now be Teaching Pastor. While his job role remains unchanged, we feel this title better captures his primary focus, and he’s fully supportive of the change.
More changes to come
These are the first four changes for 2025, and several more will follow as we seek to grow and strengthen the staff team. Let’s all show our love and support to each of these individuals as they step into what God has both for them and for our church in this new season.
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