Author: Steve Petch

Changes To Our Sunday Meetings

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Since the pandemic began we’ve made regular adjustments to how we run Sunday meetings, and this will continue in the months ahead. Remember, we only restarted 9am and 11am meetings with kids work eight weeks ago. As it stands we’re still on a journey towards a new normal, so this September we’ll be taking some more steps towards that with some small adjustments as follows:

  • From this Sunday (19th Sept) we’ll still meet at 9am and 11am, but we’ll now be aiming for meetings that are 1hr 15 mins in length (which is pretty much what they’ve actually been all along 😃) 
  • We may begin to reduce the size of the socially distanced seating area since less people want to use it for this purpose. We will ensure there is enough space there for all those who feel the need for it
  • Children will continue to be in for the worship time and then go out to their groups, but their groups will now run until 10.30am for the first meeting and 12.30pm for the second meeting. This will give us 15 minutes that we can use for prayer ministry, for catching up with one another and for people to have tea/coffee together before collecting children
  • From Sunday 26th September we will reintroduce tea/coffee after each meeting
  • We will also reintroduce communion regularly on a Sunday, and begin to make space to pray for people in person too

Because we’re being warned that the pandemic is ‘far from over’ and that some restrictions might be reintroduced, we’ll continue to broadcast the 9am livestream for now (although we do encourage everyone who can attend in person to do so). We’ll also be ready to make further changes as needed, in line with official guidance for churches.

It goes without saying that we should all be careful and vigilant. If you have symptoms of Covid or have tested positive for Covid in the last ten days (with or without symptoms) you should not attend in person; this is not going to be a winter to ‘push through that cold and keep going’!

As we make changes let’s remember that we are a charismatic church; we should expect to encounter God’s presence and for people to use spiritual gifts; we want the genuine presence and power of God to be experienced by us all. With this in mind, although worship times are still a little shorter, let’s expect some God focused, encouraging contributions to help us in our worship. All we ask is that you come forward and use the microphone so everyone, including the livestream, can hear you.

I’m looking forward to an exciting autumn as we continue our new preaching series, I’m looking forward to meeting with my church family, I’m looking forward to encountering God’s presence and I’m even hopeful that we might get to celebrate Christmas together this year too.

Calling 18 – 30 Year Olds Who Want More

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What has God got in store for your future? Is there an area of work, leadership or ministry He’s calling you in to? Is there something He’s calling you to pioneer? Is there a nation or place He’s calling you to? We want to help you explore what the future could look like as you open up more fully to God and to His plans and purposes for your life.

One thing our new preaching series will highlight is the need we all have for discipleship and mentoring as we learn to follow Jesus. With this in mind we’re creating a great new opportunity for some of the younger people in our church this year.

Here’s how it will work: once a month over the next 12 months, on a Saturday morning, Jo and I, along with some other great leaders from our church, will be running a discipleship group aimed specifically at people from 18 years of age up to about 30.

It will run in person at our Welcome Church building. All the sessions will be free and we’ll even give you breakfast each time. We’ll start the sessions at about 8am with an aim to be done by about 10.30am so you can get on with your day.

As a group we’ll be addressing a whole range of issues along the way such as: finding God’s call on your life, developing a vision for the future, staying emotionally and mentally healthy, handling relationships/singleness well, dealing with social media, growing in your gifting and getting to know God better. Whatever your age, relationship or employment status we believe God has a plan for your life and an exciting part for you to play in His Kingdom. Come along and find out more.

If you’re part of Welcome Church and you fit the age profile and you want to come along for these sessions, please sign up by emailing us on connect@allwelcome.uk.

We’re limiting this to about 20 places, so don’t hang about or you could miss out. And be warned: it could change your life for good.

I Love My Church

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It’s been great to see more people starting to attend in person at church each week now that September is here. If you’ve started coming again recently, welcome back!

This Sunday we started our new preaching series for the autumn called I LOVE MY CHURCH, and we’ve given our series artwork a Welcome Church twist

I preached the first message in the series this week and, because all the rest of the series builds on this first message, I have a simple request for everyone …

… if you missed the talk, for whatever reason, please listen to it.

It’s a slightly longer message than normal because it’s laying the foundation for everything else to come, but don’t let that put you off. You can find it as a podcast from all the usual podcast sources, you can listen to it as an audio file by clicking here, or you can watch the video of the preach (the best option by far in my opinion) by clicking below. Why not make the time to do that before Sunday?

One more thing: Christopher Hawes has been working with an artist called Jack Seymour to create some beautiful illustrations to help bring the ideas in the series to life. This first one is below. Enjoy!

Some Summer Reading

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As I’ve done on a couple of past occasions I wanted to mention some books you may find helpful. If you have some down time over the summer (or even if you don’t) why not give them a go?

Gentle and Lowly by Dale Ortlund

This book is about getting to know Jesus better and understanding his heart towards us. I read it one chapter a day alongside my Bible reading. Andrew Wilson (teaching pastor at Kings Church London and well known to many of us) described it as ‘the best book he’s read in the last decade’. So many different leaders recommended it to me that in the end I had to get a copy and it turned out to be one of the best books I’ve read; it’s the sort of book I’ll be returning to time and again. If you want to understand more about how God really thinks of you, start here.

The Rise and Triumph Of The Modern Self by Carl Trueman

Over the past year the subject of gender identity has dominated large sections of the British media, and many well known public figures have fallen foul of this issue. But how did our society get to this place? How, for example, have we arrived at a situation where someone defining a woman as ‘an adult female human being’ can lead to accusations that they are causing harm and demands for them to be cancelled? Carl Trueman who is both a Christian and British, and is also a professor of Biblical studies at Grove City College Pennsylvania, has a lot of insights for us. Be warned though: this book is not for the faint hearted. It’s a long read, covering a tricky subject at an academic level, but it’s well worth the effort.

Everything Happens For A Reason (and other lies I’ve loved) by Kate Bowler

Kate Bowler, professor of divinity at a University in the USA, was 35 years old and had finally had a baby with her childhood sweetheart. Shortly afterwards she began to feel jabbing pains in her stomach and was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer and was told she might not have long to live. How does a Christian face this sort of challenge? Do we lean into a property gospel that God will always heal us if we believe and pray hard enough? Or do we just surrender to fate? And how do we, as Christians, support people who find themselves with a diagnosis like this, without resorting to worthless platitudes such as ‘everything happens for a reason’? I read this in one sitting.

Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion by Rebecca McLaughlin

Rebecca McLaughlin holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge University and a degree in theological and pastoral studies from Oak Hill Theological College in London. In this book she looks at some of the toughest questions Christians face today, covering topics such as suffering, diversity, sexuality, slavery, heaven and hell, gender equality, science vs the Bible and more. The book shows how the best research from sociology, science, and psychology doesn’t disagree with, but actually aligns with claims found in the Bible and shows how these issues are not roadblocks but signposts to faith in Christ. This is a really helpful resource to answer both our own questions and those that may get thrown at us by others.

One Big Welcome Church Weekend

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This Sunday, 25th July, we’re returning to something much closer to normal church life. Welcome Church will be meeting at 9am and 11am, with kids work starting again and absolutely no need to book in advance to attend – just turn up. I’m really looking forward to singing together in worship, instead of sitting down and ‘watching’.

For full practical details of how the meetings will run during this next season please follow this link here, especially if you’re still a bit nervous because of Covid. The link should tell you everything you need to know, including the measures we’re taking to keep everyone safe.

As well as church life getting back to something more like normal, there are three extra things to look forward to this Sunday:

1. We will be baptising people

We have four people due to be baptised at the 9am meeting and 7 at the 11am meeting, with more baptisms planned for the autumn too. If you’re a Christian and have not yet been baptised since you came to faith in Jesus it’s not too late for you to join them, just get in touch and talk to us about it on connect@allwelcome.uk

2. We have a guest speaker

Guy Miller, who leads the Apostolic team of our Commission family of churches, will be our speaker this weekend. He’s going to be continuing our ‘Words That Changed My World’ preaching series and I’m looking forward to hearing what he has to say

3. We have our Welcome Home Summer Social in the afternoon

This will be a great chance to connect again with the whole Welcome Church family and to eat and relax together. It runs from 12.30pm to 4.30pm at the Schifano’s field (a map will be available at the meetings this Sunday, or please email info@allwelcome.uk for details)

This event is completely free and includes food, drinks, bouncy castles, an inflatable assault course, a slip n slide, children’s games and more – just bring a chair, rug or something to sit on.

We will be keeping an eye on the weather of course, and if we do get rained off we’ll let you know and will reschedule soon. Events like this will be a key part of our Welcome Church Recovery Plan following Covid – make sure you don’t miss it.

See you at the weekend!

Congratulations to Alice Potter

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On Maundy Thursday this year Alice Potter received an incredible honour: she was chosen to receive the Maundy Money from the Queen.

Earlier this year Alice received a letter from Buckingham Palace, signed personally by Her Majesty The Queen, notifying her that she was a Maundy recipient. Normally Alice would have been invited to meet the Queen in person during a service at Westminster Abbey that commemorates Jesus washing the feet of the Apostles at the Last Supper. This year, due to Covid, the Queen sent Alice the two special purses containing the Maundy Money along with a personal signed letter.

Each year the Queen distributes the Maundy money to people who have done great work in their local communities. The tradition goes all the way back to 600 AD and you can read more about it here or here.

This is an incredible award that recognises Alice’s ongoing service to the local community in so many different ways including as a Chaplain with Surrey Police and her volunteer roles with Welcome Church, along with her involvement with Street Angels. In fact she has done so many things that this award is well deserved!

The red purse contains the traditional sum of £5.50. In the past this was ‘an allowance for clothing and provisions’ (though it wouldn’t go far today). This year the £5 coin commemorates Her Majesty’s 95th Birthday and the 50 pence coin portrays the 50th anniversary of Decimal Day in 1971. The white purse contains Maundy coins: silver pennies, twopences, threepences and fourpences, totalling 95 pence, corresponding to The Queen’s age.

Jo and I had the joy of sitting in our garden with Alice on a dry but windy day last week to have a look at it all. She told us that when she first received the letter she thought it was a scam! We’re delighted that proved not to be the case, and I’m sure many of us would want to join in congratulating Alice on this well deserved honour; she is an amazing wall building hero in God’s kingdom.

Showing God’s Heart Of Compassion

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Proverbs 19v7: “Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will repay him for his deed.” 

I hope you enjoyed our Welcome Church Carol Service with Compassion UK.

As a church we love partnering with Compassion UK to see children lifted out of poverty in Jesus’ name. So far as a church we’ve sponsored over 140 children in a part of Togo in Africa. You can read a bit more about what we do by clicking here. People from Welcome Church have also sponsored children in other parts of the world too. You can see many of their pictures here:

If you would like to sponsor a child all you need to do is follow this link here. The link will take you to a specific page where you can view the children who are available to sponsor right now today, and how are all based in the project in Togo we’re already connected with. For £28 a month you can completely change a life; what a great gift to give this Christmas!

Togo is one probably the least developed country in Africa, and that’s against some tough competition. Sponsorship is one of the best kingdom investments you will ever make.

Please, in Jesus name, go for it!

Isaiah 58v10: If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.

Helping People In Need

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I’ve loved seeing us put our faith in action as a church to help people in need recently. For example, during the recent half term holidays, we helped a number of families in need here in Woking. These families get free school meals for their children in term time, and we were able to give them some much needed vouchers to feed their children during the holidays too. It was greatly appreciated and made a real difference.

Two situations

We’re also helping out financially in two situations where we have direct connection to churches in other nations. I shared about these during our recent online communion meeting and invited people to give.

The first is in Izmir in Turkey, where an earthquake and tsunami killed 115 people, injured more than 1000, and left many homeless bringing down buildings and making others unsafe to use.

A church in Izmir who we have direct connection with are providing food to people in need and to rescue workers. They’re meeting the needs of many who’ve been left homeless who are living in tents as the weather gets colder. Amongst other things they’re providing food, heaters, firewood, hats, socks and thermal clothing. They’ve also been able to share God’s love with people.

As a church their funds to do this ran out, but (along with some others) we’ve been able to send them money to help the work continue.  

The other situation is in the Philippines where two typhoons in rapid succession have hit the region of Bicol with winds of up to 225mph. Commission has a church plant starting in a home in that area, but the home was totally destroyed, along with the homes of some other church members. This level of destruction of people’s lives is replicated all around the area and comes on top of crops being destroyed by a volcano recently, and the impact of Covid.

The Christians in our churches there are often incredibly poor, yet incredibly joy filled. Again, as a church, we’ve been able to send money to help them survive and rebuild.

It’s not too late to help

It’s not too late for you to give to either of these situations, and the good news is the money will go directly to the church there; we know the people and we know how it will be used. If you want to help please give a gift to us as a church and mark it ‘crisis’. You can do that through our website here. We will pass on every penny including the gift aid if it applies.

So far just under £6000 has been raised, which is being split between these two causes. We sent the initial amount out last week, but it’s not too late to grow that amount so more can be sent.

Remember: “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward them for what they have done.” (Proverbs 19 v17)

Handling Grief

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During our Welcome Church preaching series on ‘Sickness, Healing and Death’ (click here for Part 1) we used the final week to address questions people sent in. The topic of grief came up repeatedly.

There were two themes:

First, people trying to be superhuman. The idea that because someone was a Christian and we know they are now with Christ, we shouldn’t feel sad or even grieve at all, we should only be happy for them.

Second, people getting stuck in grief. The challenge of finding a new ‘normal’ after a significant loss … of moving on with life again … of acknowledging the ongoing reality of loss without making an ‘idol’ out of the dead person or the past we once had.

I’m not a grief counsellor, but as a church pastor I believe this:

  1. Suppressing grief (or any emotion) is not a good long term solution. It may help us cope temporarily, but it will come out in the end somehow.
  2. Grief has a God-given purpose. Although we may all experience grief differently, God does intend us all to ‘recover’, which doesn’t mean we no longer feel loss, but that it no longer defines us
  3. For Christians, grief is mixed with hope. “We grieve, but not in the same way as those who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4v13)

Grief is a normal human emotion and even Jesus experienced it. The Bible tells us, “there is a time to grieve“ (Ecclesiastes 3v4). To suppress grief is not helpful for us, and to stay ‘stuck’ is also not helpful; there is a time for grief; a season for it.

Following the series I wanted to post some links to helpful resources you can work through in your own time if you want to. I hope they help, and don’t forget that pastoral support is available if you need it. It’s okay to ask.

Some resources

A summary of ‘What The Bible Says About Grief’ (it’s not long, but it catches the main points well)

A video about ‘How Grief Changes Over Time’ (a theory that resonated with me and I found helpful)

A resource on ‘The Stages Of Grief’ (written by a palliative care nurse and fact checked by a doctor; it’s worth noting that there is some dispute about the idea of grief having ‘stages’)

A resource on ‘Anticipatory Grief’, which can happen when we know a death is approaching (written by a cancer specialist doctor)

Resources ‘about complicated grief’ (which is largely what was meant by people ‘getting stuck’) from Cruse Bereavement Care, who are excellent.

Finally, an excellent article on ‘Why Grief Is Evidence For God’ (written by Sharon Dirckx, who preached at Welcome Church a while ago)

Sickness, Healing and Death

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This Sunday at Welcome Church we’re starting a brand new preaching series called, ‘Sickness, Healing and Death’. This might not sound like the most encouraging topic to kick off the new season with, so why do it?

Firstly I would say it should actually be very encouraging since the gospel is good news for all of life, but beyond that there are three main reasons:

1. We have a number of people in the church who are ill right now, some critically

It’s vital we understand what the Bible teaches about sickness, healing and death so we can handle each situation well, respond with faith, and be ready to help one another and pray for one another.

2. We’re in the midst of a health pandemic as a nation

Coronavirus is still with us. From Monday the new ‘rule of 6’ began. Statistically it’s likely that some more of us will catch the virus, and some may become ill or die from it. We’ve been relatively unscathed as a church so far, and I pray it stays that way, but there are no guarantees. Either way, 100% of us WILL die at some point. Death and sickness are a fact of life, so we need to view these issues Biblically.

3. Most importantly: we need to move forward again as a church

We need to come ‘Back To Life’, as I preached on Sunday (click here to listen). Before too long we’ll start some ‘in person’ Sunday meetings. We’re legally allowed to do them (with some Covid restrictions) and it will mean stepping out in faith for some of us; in person meetings will challenge us to overcome fear and apathy. A Biblical view on sickness, healing and death will help us overcome fear, and release us into faith.

Let’s embrace this new season

I believe God has great things ahead for us as a church. As we step up and step out again, let’s do it with our eyes wide open and our hearts encouraged by what the Bible teaches on these hugely relevant issues.