Introducing Our Newest Staff Team Member: Mark Caldeira

February 16, 2023February 16, 2023 / Steve Petch / 2 Comments

As a church we’ve grown a lot in recent months, so our staff team also needs to grow for us to continue to meet the demands of all that needs to be done. One area where we’ve been particularly stretched is our Operations Team, and I’m delighted to announce that we’ve invited Mark Caldeira to join our team full time, as an Operations Manager, from March 6th. Mark won’t be replacing any of our current operations staff; he is needed in addition to them.

Mark is married to Alverna and they have a daughter called Skye who will be 3 years old next month. They are joining us from Mumbai, India where they’ve been part of Living Hope Church, a Commission church led by Vinu Paul. This connection is how I first came to know Mark several years ago and also how I learnt of his move to the UK.

Alverna works for JP Morgan, a financial services company, and last month she was relocated from Mumbai to their offices in Canary Wharf, London – this is the reason behind the family’s relocation to the UK, and why Mark has become available to us.

Mark has vast amount of relevant experience that he will bring to Welcome Church. He started his career working as an Audio Engineer for a recording studio in Mumbai, before moving into church work as Media Director for Living Hope Church and as Vinu Paul’s PA. After this he became the Operations Manager for Living Hope Church and then more recently stepped up to became the Operations Coordinator for the whole of Commission India, which has well over 200 churches across the network.

Mark will bring us expertise in administrative logistics, event and conference management, facilities management, finance & budgeting and IT, and also has experience in improving operational productivity and processes. His skills also include audio, video, media, lighting and sound recording, which I’m sure we’ll put to good use.

Let’s be on the front foot to welcome Mark, Alverna and Skye as they move into Woking over the next few weeks and become part of the Welcome Church family.

Looking to the future we will also need to grow our pastoral staff, especially in the area of co-ordinating our Life Groups and expanding our preaching team. Do be praying as we seek God’s guidance for the way forward in this area of our church life too.

The Commission Leadership Conference

May 26, 2022May 26, 2022 / Steve Petch / Leave a comment

We’re part of a family of churches called Commission, and together we’re on a mission to see thousands of lives transformed, through hundreds of churches, in tens of nations. The recent pandemic has thrown up all sorts of challenges, not least that we’ve been unable to gather for our annual Connect Festival event – but that doesn’t mean we aren’t getting together.

In September this year we’re running a leadership conference, and I’d love lots of us to be there. The event is being held from Wed 28th to Fri 30th September at Citygate Church in Bournemouth. It’s aimed at anyone who leads anything at any level in our church or in the workplace or community. If you don’t lead anything right now but think you might like to one day, you should book in too.

The theme for the conference is:

“Leading for the glory of God”

The conference will include a mix of teaching, worship, seminars and ministry, along with a chance for us to hang out together socially as we enjoy food and maybe even a walk on the beach. Some from our church will be staying over in Bournemouth for the whole event, others will travel down each day, so I’m sure lift shares can be arranged where needed.

Booking is now open and you can click here to go to the booking page. Early bird ticket prices are available until 31st May (there is a small price increase after that, but don’t let that put you off)

This event will be a great investment in our future together as a church and a real encouragement to us all, and the short video below will tell you a bit more about it:

Welcome Church, The Future – Part 1: Looking Back

May 9, 2022May 11, 2022 / Steve Petch / 4 Comments

On Sunday (May 8th) we had our Welcome Church Vision Evening looking at ‘Where we’ve been, where are now and, most importantly, where we’re heading in the future‘. This week I’ll be blogging about some of the key items we covered. This is part 1 of 5.

The pandemic created some big challenges for us all, both personally and as a church, yet we’ve known God’s blessing all the way through; He has done great things for us!

In the run up to the pandemic a lot had changed for us as a church in a short space of time, including a new name and logo, a new website, a new vision and mission statement, a new culture being outworked, a new approach to outreach, a new approach to belonging AND the launch of our brand new purpose built building in the heart of Woking. In some ways the pandemic could not have come at a worse time for us with Lockdown closing our building just a few weeks after it opened!

Despite this God has blessed our church beyond all expectation

We’re now back meeting together in person across two meetings each Sunday morning with kids work and youth work, and we’re seeing new people come and join us regularly. To encourage you, here are some Welcome Church statistics from the last couple of years:

4 people have joined our staff team: Christopher Hawes (Preaching and Discipleship), Uti Anyaegbunam (Ops. Manager), Hannah Oliver (Ops. Assistant) and Juliet Bauermeister (Comms. Manager)
147 have attended an Alpha Course
123 have attended our new Learn Groups (Bible Course, Prayer Course, etc)
457 signed up to attend Life Groups in the January refresh (plus there are a whole load more who we know attend but didn’t actually sign up … so cheeky!!!)
104 have attended our various CAP courses (Fresh Start, Job Club, Life Skills, Money Course)
79 people have been baptised
46 children attended the Welcome Kids Weekend Away
192 people attended our last 2 Newcomers Lunches (both since Lockdown ended)
96 people have attended our ‘Belong, Believe, Become’ course in 2022 alone

Additionally your generous giving as a church has beaten all expectations throughout the pandemic. We beat our budget in both 2020/21 and 2021/22, so on behalf of the Eldership Team and the Trustees let me say a huge THANK YOU!

We’ve also given lots away to some key causes over the last two years:

£19,000 was given in 2020 to help feed people in need through our Commission churches in India
£36,000 was raised in 2020 to support Your Sanctuary
£33,000 was given just recently to help our churches in Ukraine serve their communities during the ongoing conflict there
£19,000 was given to provide buildings for some of our Commission churches in Bangladesh and to support some of our other works in that part of the world too

In fact, as well as financing what we do as a church, we gave away over £158,000 last year alone, including to support both the work of our Commission church family and some other excellent local causes including Woking Food Bank and Woking Street Angels.

These are all good signs that God is at work in and through our church. We have a lot to be thankful for, so let’s be on the front foot to give God the glory for all he’s doing, even as we face some sadnesses, some sicknesses and some losses amongst our church family too.

“The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy” Psalm 126v3

Where do we go from here?

Looking back at God’s past faithfulness brings great encouragement, faith and hope for the future. Tomorrow I’m going to blog about our brand new vision statement as a church which will now begin to shape where we go in the future.

On Mission With Commission

October 13, 2021 / Steve Petch / Leave a comment

Welcome Church is part an international family of churches called Commission. Each summer we get together with the other UK based Commission churches, and some from further afield, for a festival where we worship together, hear great teaching and have a whole lot of fun and games. For the past two summers this has been cancelled due to Covid, but it’s back on in summer 2022. Connect Festival will run from 25th to 29th August at the Bath and West Show Ground in Shepton Mallet. Please click here to register your interest. Bookings will open soon.

At the Festival each summer there’s usually been an offering to help fund our international mission as a family of churches. It goes to fund church plants, leadership training courses, ministry to the poor, care of churches around the world and more. The offering helps fund some amazing things that we value as a church, and lots of us would normally have given to this offering in person at the event.

Because there’s been no conference in 2021 there’s been no offering, but the mission continues. With this in mind we’d love to invite everyone to consider making a gift to the Commission offering; a gift from Welcome Church. We’d like to ask every person to think about it prayerfully and to give with faith.

If you’re up for this challenge you can give in two ways:
1. You can give online via bank transfer to Welcome Church and mark it as being for the Commission offering. Click here for a link to our online giving details.

2. You can give cash or cheque by putting it in an envelope, labelling it for the Commission Offering and dropping it into the office during the week or into the box at the information point on a Sunday morning. (Please make any cheques payable to Welcome Church.)

Thank you in advance for your giving. We’ll gather it together over the next 2 or 3 weeks and send it as one gift from us all. Here’s a video that explains a lot more about what the offering is for:

One Big Welcome Church Weekend

July 23, 2021July 24, 2021 / Steve Petch / Leave a comment

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!

Helping People In Need

November 17, 2020November 17, 2020 / Steve Petch / Leave a comment

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)

Launch Sunday … Welcome Church, We Have Lift Off!

January 20, 2020January 20, 2020 / Steve Petch / 2 Comments

On Sunday (19th Jan 2020) Welcome Church marked the official launch of our brand new building in the heart of Woking. We were delighted to see so many people there to celebrate with us.

Just over 1,200 people attended across the two meetings, and this represents a new ‘high water mark’ for the church. We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who was there including friends old and new and, whether you were there or not, everyone is warmly invited to come and join us next Sunday at 9am or 11am.

So much to pack in

It was a fast paced morning:

Our worship team kicked us off in brilliant style with some vibrant worship
We then remembered some of our 140 year history of buildings, looking back at our journey so far and forward to our future vision
We heard from Paul Ginever, the architect who designed the new building
The Mayor of Woking, Councillor Beryl Hunwicks, spoke about the importance of community and working together
At the 11am meeting Jonathan Lord MP, Member of Parliament for Woking, was present to share some very kind words of encouragement
Then Steve Blow, the Finance Director for Compassion UK, presented Welcome Church with a display board to mark the support given to mothers and babies in Togo through our partnership with them

My Favourite Thing From Sunday 🙂

You can listen to that part of our meeting by clicking here.

Welcome Stories

This week also marked the start of our six week ‘Welcome Stories’ series. Many of us were deeply moved watching Mike’s Story, which showed the difference that Jesus has made to his life, helping him to get free from depression and more. You can watch his powerful story here:

This video should play, but if not please click here to view it via our church website

Towards the end of the meeting I talked about a question, the answer to which profoundly shapes our lives and daily actions:

“What do you think God is like?”

This talk was based on Jesus’ story of The Prodigal Son, and you can hear it by clicking here. For me, it was a morning to remember.

Please come again

I want to invite everyone who reads this to come and join us at Welcome Church over the next five weeks. We will be continuing our Welcome Stories series, and there will be another powerful Welcome Story video each Sunday.

Consider some fascinating facts about how, on average, we spend our lives…

We sleep for over 20 years of our lives
We watch TV for over 10 years of our lives
We spend 5 years 9 months in some form of transportation
We spend 7 ½ years eating and drinking

Why not spend 7 ½ hours over these next five weeks joining us for this Welcome Stories series? It will be a great way to brighten up these gloomy January and February Sunday mornings!

Finally, here are some photos from Sunday morning to enjoy:

A Day To Remember

January 8, 2020January 9, 2020 / Steve Petch / Leave a comment

We had our first Sunday meetings in our new Welcome Church building in the heart of Woking this week, and what a great day it was!

Around 750 people attended across the two morning meetings, and some of the highlights for me included:

The sense of joy and excitement after so long waiting for a new building
Seeing so many people from our church gathered across the two meetings
The excellent coffee and refreshments (thank you Marcus, Sharon and team)
The top notch parking arrangements that came together and worked so well (thank you Richard and team)
Embarrassing the awesome Mike Deavin by getting him to sit on the stage in an armchair with a blanket whilst I preached (thank you Mike)
The amazing worship times … our musicians and sound team were absolutely ON IT! (Thank you team)

I also enjoyed gathering in the evening to pray around the whole site.

An extra special thank you goes to Charles C for the huge amount of time he put in to make sure that everything worked in terms of sound, lights and visuals.