Domestic Violence: Helping Victims, Getting Fit

/ Steve Petch / 1 Comment

During Lockdown incidences of Domestic Violence have risen at the same time as charitable giving has fallen , so we’re raising money for Your Sanctuary, a Woking based charity who help victims of domestic violence and their families.

Our Fund Raiser is off to a good start with around £1,500 being raised already and a distance of over 1000 miles being covered so far (which takes us across Holland and Germany and to the far side of Poland …)

We will post distance updates and photos on our Welcome Church social media accounts each weekend, so do look out for those.

You can check out the details of our ambitious plan by clicking here or reading this recent blog. People have been joining in by running, walking, cycling, scooting and even roller skating. However you get about, as long as it’s under your own steam, you’re welcome to join in.

We’ve started a Strava Club too – (“Welcome Church Goes Around The World”). You’re welcome to join that and help us rack up the miles. Why not see if you can top the leader board?

However long or short your daily exercise, every distance counts. We want everyone to join in, whatever their age or fitness level. Don’t forget to submit your distances by emailing them to aroundtheworld@allwelcome.uk.  We don’t mind if it’s in miles, kilometres, yards, centimetres, cubits, stadia, furlongs, fathoms or leagues – we will convert it and add it all up.

Let’s have fun doing this together and let’s give generously to make a real difference. This fun video will tell you more:

New Initiative: Welcome Church Goes Around The World

/ Steve Petch / 3 Comments

At Welcome Church, we love people and want to respond to Jesus’ call to support and help others, even at this difficult time.

During the Coronavirus Lockdown, incidences of Domestic Violence have risen.  At the same time charitable giving has fallen. Domestic violence destroys lives and families, and we want to do something to make a difference, so we are going to raise money for Your Sanctuary, a Woking based charity who help victims of domestic violence and their families. It’s a real privilege to get alongside them and raise money for the amazing work they do.

We have an ambitious plan

Let’s use our daily exercise over the next the next 6 weeks to see if we can go far enough to have circled the globe together – a distance of 24, 901 miles – and let’s do it to raise £24,901 for this amazing cause.

We want everyone who is part of Welcome Church to join together to do two things:

First, let’s measure and log our daily exercise distance each day

Walking,  running, cycling, roller skating, scooting or an exercise machine – however you do it – measure your distance each day and maybe take a picture of yourself doing it. Add up every member of your household, and then send it in each day, with any pictures you may have, to aroundtheworld@allwelcome.uk

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This data will get added together, and over 6 weeks we’re aiming to cover a distance that would have taken us right around the world. Everyone’s exercise counts, from the youngest to the oldest, from the longest to the shortest distance. This is a team effort where our church community, together within anyone else who wants to get involved, can combine together to complete this challenge.

Second, let’s invite the people we know to sponsor us as a church for doing it, to raise money for Your Sanctuary:

Let’s get as many people as possible to support us with this, giving anything from £1 upwards. Any amount, however small or large, will be appreciated.

People can be invited to give through our Go Fund me page, and don’t forget to share it to social media as well. Invite your friends, family, neighbours and colleagues to sponsor us all, and let’s raise some money!

In the weeks ahead people will be able to follow our progress around the globe and see updates and photos of people completing their daily exercise on our Facebook Page  or Instagram

A target to go for

We’ve set a target to raise £24,901. This amounts to £1 per mile and, although we are not asking people to sponsor us ‘per mile’, it’s great to have something to aim for … and let’s all give generously ourselves too.

Whether we achieve the financial target or not, any amount raised will be amazing, and we can have some fun doing it

The Welcome Church Building Work Is Finished

/ Steve Petch / 3 Comments

I am delighted to announce that the building work at Welcome Church is now complete, bringing to an end an important chapter in our church’s history and opening up a whole new one. I’m looking forward to the time when Lockdown measures are over and we’re able to start using it properly.

We had expected the current crisis to delay completion, but government guidance permits building work to continue as long as appropriate hygiene and social distancing measures are in place, and our contractor made the call to continue. They were inspected regularly along the way by Woking Borough Council for compliance.

Yesterday I had to go over to the building to collect the keys. Sadly we were unable to have a proper ‘handover ceremony’ because of the times we are in, but I was handed the keys by Simon Powell, contracts manager for O&D Construction, on the end of a 2m pole!

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The new offices are looking good, as is the whole site, and hopefully these pictures give an idea of the finished result. Let’s pray it’s not too long before we all get to see it in real life and enjoy meeting together in person.

If you’ve never visited us at Welcome Church, we’d love to see you when we’re open again. In the meantime, you can join us each Sunday online for our meetings at 9am, 11am and 6pm.

There are of course some small jobs outstanding on the building which social distancing or availability of raw materials at this time have made impossible, and there will undoubtedly be snagging issues to resolve once we get in; we will deal with these along the way.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this project. Please let me encourage you, as far as you are able (and I recognise that some are facing huge challenges right now) to keep giving generously so that we can meet our monthly mortgage payments, and perhaps clear the mortgage altogether.

God has given us this building for a reason and we have not been called to stand still. We are here to be a blessing to our town and further afield, and we have a big vision that we want to fulfil. I can’t wait to be back in our building again and I look forward to seeing you there!

John Kirkby, founder of CAP, speaking at Welcome Church

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This Sunday morning, 1st March, we are honoured to have an excellent and much sought after guest speaker at Welcome Church for our 9am and 11am meetings: Dr John Kirkby, the founder of CAP (Christians Against Poverty).

Everyone is welcome to join us for this special occasion.

CAP

About CAP

John started Christians Against Poverty in 1996, when God called him to sacrifice his career in finance and use his knowledge of the industry to help the poor. Since then John has seen CAP develop into an organisation serving tens of thousands of individuals every year, helping those struggling with debt, unemployment and life controlling habits, and equipping people to live well on a low income.

CAP has now helped thousands of people all across the UK to get out of life destroying debt. Our own CAP debt advice centre, which is one of our Welcome Works initiatives, opened in 2019, and is already making a difference to people’s lives. This adds to the work already being done with CAP in Woking by our friends at Christ Church and New Life Church too. You can see the full range of CAP services on offer at Welcome Church by clicking here.

CAP was featured last year in a BBC Two documentary The Debt Saviours, which followed the lives of some CAP clients and frontline workers in the middle of the current UK poverty epidemic. It showed how CAP is committed to transforming lives in partnership with local churches across the UK. CAP has also won many different awards, and John Kirkby himself recently received a CBE. CAP is also recommended by Martin Lewis, Founder and Chair of Money Saving Expert.

Come and join us for the morning

If you would like to hear John, please join us for either our 9am or 11am meeting. There will be great coffee, and tasty pastries and doughnuts available before and after each meeting – all free of charge. As for all our Sunday meetings there will also be kids and youth work taking place.

It’s an absolute privilege to have John with us, so make sure not to miss it.

Here us a link to the event on Facebook too.

Launch Sunday … Welcome Church, We Have Lift Off!

/ 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.

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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
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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:

 

New Building, New Life

/ Steve Petch / 1 Comment

This Sunday is the launch of our new Welcome Church building, and what an exciting day it will be. We’ve had a couple of practice runs over the last two Sundays, and I’m anticipating a great weekend.

Let me say up front, if you are reading this blog and you don’t usually come to Welcome Church, please do join us on Sunday at 9am or 11am. There will be free coffee and pastries and we promise a warm welcome for all. Just come as you are; everyone is welcome.

If you need somewhere to park then please head to Philips Court where we have free parking spaces available. The entrance to Philips Court is to the left of the Fire Station on Goldsworth Road (Postcode: GU21 6LE). Stewards will cheerfully direct you on arrival.

Here is a short video with all the details, please do give it a watch:

The video should be visible above, if it’s not then please click here to view it.

Ahead of Sunday, here are a few pointers and encouragements from me …

Let’s look out for every guest:

It can be nerve racking for anyone turning up at church for the first time, so let’s help everyone feel welcome. There will great coffee and warm pastries available before and after both meetings – let’s make sure that guests get to them first, or that we offer to bring something over for them. Some guests may be looking for the children’s work or the toilets – let’s be ready to show them the way. Perhaps you might offer to sit with someone who looks new.

In addition to those you will be bringing yourself, we have a number of ‘VIP’ guests coming including Borough Councillors, the Mayor, our Local MP, the architect, some of the building Contractors, local media and more. Please do speak to them and please help to make everyone feel at home. 

Let’s invite people:

Dub wrote about how to do that on this blog last week. You can read that here. Remember, people are very interested in the new building and want to see it. Many will come along if asked. Let’s go for it in faith.

Let’s fill up from the front and fill up the rows:

We have a lovely big building and it’s going to be fairly full on Sunday. One way to serve people well is to fill up from the front and to fill up the rows, not leaving big gaps. It’s a simple thing that we can all do to show love for others.

Let’s pray:

Whilst the building is beautiful and (in my opinion) impressive, we really want people to be impressed with Jesus. Let’s be praying through this week for God’s presence in everything and his protection over everything.

One more thing: another word about parking

As there will be many guests this week, if you belong to Welcome Church and are not bringing or arriving with a guest then perhaps for this one week, if you are physically able, you might consider parking in Victoria Way Car Park and walking across. We can validate your ticket so you get free parking. This will leave the nearby spaces free for our guests.

If you are serving at both meetings then please do park at Pulse on Cherry Street (GU21 6EE) as usual.

A Day To Remember

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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.

Next Sunday we will back again at 9am and 11am

You will see some changes to the building that have taken place this week as the builders have continued towards finishing the job.

And in terms of parking please do head to Philips Court again (left hand side of the Fire Station) and you will be directed from there.

Here are a few photos from the day for you to enjoy in case you missed them:

Welcome Stories

/ Steve Petch / 2 Comments

Over the last few weeks at Welcome Church we’ve launched a brand new initiative called Welcome Stories.

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Welcome Stories are short videos from people in our church whose lives have been impacted for good by Jesus. You can check some of them out on our Welcome Stories website, or you can find them on our Welcome Church Facebook page, our Instagram account or our YouTube channel. There are lots more coming in the weeks ahead.

Sharing

As we launch these stories week by week we want to encourage people to share them to their friends via social media. Liking them is kind of you, but sharing them is actually useful for the gospel!

Please don’t use religious language when you share them, but do perhaps use the hashtag #WelcomeStories.

You can share them on Facebook and Instagram easily by sharing the posts we’ve already made on our Welcome Church pages. You can also share them from You Tube or from the Welcome Stories website onto Twitter and other media.

Why do it?

These videos are about helping people connect to Jesus … and that is already happening. We are already seeing fruit from these stories.

So far over 28,000 people have viewed one of our Welcome Stories. Just imagine the impact we could have in Woking if everyone in our church shared these?

And of course, this is all part of the run up to the launch of our new building on January 19th. It’s part of the invitation process. We will even kick off our new year with a preaching series called “Welcome Stories”.

So let’s get sharing, let’s get praying, and let’s expect God to do big things!

I’ve put a link to one of the stories here – Enjoy!

The video should be visible above, if it’s not then please click here to view it.

Happy 140th Birthday!

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Last Saturday was a special day for Welcome church, and not just because of the amazing Fun Day we had …

It was also our 140th birthday as a church!

In the 1870’s Woking was a fast growing town with a railway station and a canal – remember this was before cars existed and that homes did not yet have electricity. In terms of the church in Woking there was a small Methodist chapel, and a tin hut for the Anglicans to meet in. This tin hut was on the spot where Christ Church has now been built in Jubilee Square. 

In 1879 Rev. Edward Tarbox, from Addlestone Baptist Church, wanted to plant a new Baptist Church in Woking. Forty people attended an exploratory meeting in a house in Goldsworth Road on Thursday 18th September where it was agreed to go ahead.

The first Sunday morning and evening services of ‘Woking Baptist Congregational Church’ were held in a house in Goldsworth Road on Sunday 28th September, 1879. The Rev. Tarbox preached at both services, communion was celebrated and eight people were welcomed into church membership.

It was agreed on that first Sunday that Rev. Tarbox would become the Pastor and that Henry William Gloster would become the first Deacon. Henry was the Great Grandfather of John Gloster who is in our church today, and you really can see the family resemblance under that beard – they have the same cheeky smile. Sadly I have no photos of Edward, but if you do please let me have them!

 

Henry Gloster
John Gloster

Buildings

Goldsworth Rd Baptist (Alvina Gould) (2)

Building No. 2: Goldsworth Road Baptist Church, 1906

At that first meeting it was also agreed to put together a committee to oversee buying some land and constructing a building for the church. It seems that God has been inspiring us to build and to expand since day one.

 

 

That building was completed within two years and the debt paid off a year later, which was impressive to have achieved from a standing start!

Sadly that building was found to be far too small, so the church immediately started work on a second building, which opened in 1886: Goldsworth Road Baptist Church.

Once again we outgrew the building, so in the 1920’s the church bought some more land, this time in Percy Street (which no longer exists) and built a third building: Percy Street Baptist Church.

There are people in our church who still remember that building with affection, having been saved there, baptised there, married there and more.

There is a great photo that was taken during the last ever service held in the Percy Street building, on the evening of 31st December 1976. As you can see, there is some great seventies fashion going on in that photo, and if you zoom in close you may spot one or two faces you recognise …

 

Building No. 3: Percy Street Baptist Church
Last meeting at Percy Street Baptist Church, 31st Dec 1976

In October 1977 our church moved into its fourth building, called The Coign. We renamed this building The Welcome Centre when we became Welcome Church.

This building is now being redeveloped to provide us with new offices and to serve our children’s work, our youth work, our social action ministries and the wider community. On the land behind it we are also building a completely new 675 seat chapel. THERE IS MORE INFO ON THAT HERE.

We plan to start meeting in the new chapel from January 2020.

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Building No. 4: The Welcome Centre (formerly The Coign)

Telling our story

Some of us love history, some are less interested. Either way let me encourage you to buy and read John Gloster’s book: Church On The Move.

John wrote this for us. It tells our history from 1879 – 1999. It’s the story of our church, so if you want to know where we come from, read it. It’s available from us for £7.00 (or £8.00 on Amazon). Any profits will go into the Building Fund.

 

John has written another book too, Welcome Church Story, which brings the story all the way up to date; that’s available for £5. These books are a great resource and I am personally grateful to John for putting them together for us; they are precious. If you want to get hold of a copy of either or both, please email info@allwelcome.uk

Feeling thankful

I’m so grateful to all the people who have gone before us. I thank God that in 1879 He sent Edward Tarbox to Woking with a courageous plan to plant a new church. That took faith, risk, money, personal sacrifice, travel, tears, prayers and hard work … and here we are today. Over the years thousands of people’s lives have been transformed by this church and I am in faith for that to continue into the future.

And it’s so much bigger than just our church. New Life Church in Old Woking celebrated their 90th birthday this weekend. Our church planted that church on our 50th birthday – a great way to celebrate! And there have been other church plants along the way too, such as those in Guildford, Camberley and Chertsey. And many leaders have been sent out to serve in different places around the UK and across the world too.

Why bother? 

But why do it? Why plant churches? Why send people? Why go to all that trouble? Why pay the price?

Because we have hope in a God who saves.

Jesus gave his people a mission to take the gospel to all nations, and that includes here in the UK. We are not a social club, here to look after ourselves; we’re on a mission from God! We have a message to share with our town. We want to introduce people to Jesus. We want to see lives change and our community impacted for good through God’s grace in action.

Our new building is part of that mission and soon we’ll move in. We should be meeting there from Sunday 5th January, with our big launch Sunday on Jan 19th.

I believe we could see hundreds of people coming to our big launch; it’s our God given opportunity to create the most exciting Sunday morning we’ve had for years. This season of church life, is all about that; let’s do all we can to maximise this moment in our history; let’s maximise the opportunity this new start creates for the gospel in our town.

Saving Lives, Helping The Poor

/ Steve Petch / 3 Comments

On Sundays June 9th and 16th we will be having the final Gift Days for our New Building Project. We are going to give away a tithe (10%) of what we collect to a project working with the poorest of the poor … and the good news is that every gift we give to them on this occasion can be doubled!

Child Survival

As a church we are already sponsoring many children in Togo through Compassion UK, and it’s a country with a lot of needs. One of the big challenges is around infant mortality and health in pregnancy.

At present in Togo:

  • 1 in 20 babies die before their first birthday … and most of these are from preventable causes
  • 1 in 58 women also die

These are shocking statistics, and Compassion are working to change this though their Child Survival Projects (CSP). These CSP’s are run by local churches in Togo. They work with mothers throughout their pregnancy and for the first year of the child’s life to provide:

  • Medical support
  • Vaccinations
  • Basic provisions – including safe water, hygiene kits and nutritious food
  • Education – on how to care for a child – remembering that many of the mothers are little more than children themselves
  • Skills training – to teach work skills that can help them earn a living
  • Spiritual support and mentoring

These projects are so important that for a short while they are receiving matched funding from our UK Government.

Our donations to this vital work (before Gift Aid) will be matched, pound for pound, by the UK government

So what we give to them will be doubled

This means that if we hit our target of £300,000, and we pass £30,000 on to Compassion, it will be doubled to £60,000 – enough to fund a project for several years.

Jesus told us that he was sent to bring good news to the poor. Let’s join him in that mission as we come to our Gift Days.

If you have any questions, please do ask.