Our Welcome Church Big Weekend Away takes place on the Bank Holiday weekend in August – Friday 22nd to Monday 25th August 2025. You really won’t want to miss it!
Your last chance to book at a special discounted price is midnight tonight!
The weekend away will take place at Braggers WoodCamp Site in the New Forest. We have the whole place to ourselves and we’ll have a lot of fun.
You’ll get to enjoy connecting with others from Welcome Church over delicious meals – all included in the price – along with fun activities, day trips, or simply relaxing in our massive marquee.
We will also be seeking God together as a church family, enjoying times of worship and teaching, and looking at what it means to belong to His family.
We’d love to see you there; there is something for everyone!
So far we’ve been offering tickets at a special price: a 25% discount has been available on all bookings made before 1st May. Most of the tickets have now gone, but we still have a few available, so don’t miss out. To book your place please use this link.
Don’t forget – any booking made after today, Wednesday 30th April, will be at full price (although full price is still a really good price for what you’ll get… 🙂)
I look forward to seeing you there!
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I hope you enjoyed our Easter Sunday services at Welcome Church. If so, you may be interested to know that it was the highest Sunday morning we’ve ever seen as a church, with 1355 people in attendance across the two meetings. We’ve only seen greater numbers than this at our Carol Services, where we have four services, that run into the afternoon and evening too.
Of course, we’re not concerned about numbers for numbers sake, but because each number is a person – and we care a lot about people meeting Jesus.
Here’s an even bigger encouragement though: this week I’ve been hearing that many churches, some from our Commission family and some from elsewhere, are also seeing lots of growth and have had their highest ever Sunday numbers too.
It seems that God is up to something in the UK but it’s happening further afield too. One church we know in Mongolia recently baptised four people, including the local Shaman who has now come to faith in Jesus. He publicly repented of leading people astray and is now wanting to tell everyone about Jesus instead.
I’ll post some links below that I’ve seen in the news this week for your encouragement – do check them out. In order they are an article from The Telegraph, an article from Premier Christianity, an Instagram post from Pete Gregg of 24/7 Prayer, a short YouTube interview that Justin Brierley (who lives in Woking) did for The Spectator, and lastly an article from The Independent.
I could have easily added another ten links on the same topic, from most of the major news outlets. It does seem that something is happening!
Dub’s Sabbatical
I’m sure we would all agree that Dub, our Outreach Pastor, is a huge gift to our church. We’re so thankful for his heart, his energy, his faithfulness, and for all he brings to our community.
This year marks Dub’s tenth year of full-time ministry with us, and as part of investing in his long-term health and calling, we’re giving him a three-month sabbatical—from the start of May to the end of July.
A sabbatical is a time of extended rest and spiritual refreshment, and it’s essential for sustaining the journey of pastoral ministry. During this time, Dub will be fully unplugged: no emails, no phone calls, no WhatsApp, and no church responsibilities. He and Tanya won’t be worshipping with us on Sundays either—they’re stepping back completely in order to rest deeply.
Dub has already been working hard to make sure that everything he leads is covered while he’s away. As a church, we want to honour this time by fully supporting that boundary. One of the best ways we can bless the whole family is by giving them space to rest well—and by holding them in prayer throughout this important season.
We love Dub and Tanya, and we’re excited for all that God has in store for them—and for us—over the next ten years.
“Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” — Mark 6:31
“Acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord… Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:12–13
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The deadline for people to let us know they’ll be moving to the 9am service is Easter Sunday, 20th April. Remember: this is all about our mission to Woking, and about making room for future growth
Please be praying for God to speak to people clearly about this move, maybe even to yourself!
The deadline for applications was last Friday, and we’re now in a process of working through to the next stage. We’ll share more information when we’re ready to do that, but please be reassured that the process is ongoing.
Please be praying for wisdom and for God’s guidance for all who are involved in the process, and for all who have applied – we want to find God’s person for this role.
Church Gate
Our Church Gate project (click here for information) is continuing to move forward, and over the last two weeks a number of contractors have been on site as part of preparing their quotes for the work to be done. These quotes will be coming in over the month ahead.
Please be praying that we get some great quotes, and for wisdom to pick the best possible contractor so that the work is done well and delivered on/ahead of time and on/under budget.
Community Grocery Grants
The grant team are continuing to apply for various grants to help fund the Community Grocery set up, and also some to help with the ongoing running costs. There is a lot of excellent work being done by this team.
Please be praying for successful applications, and for the release of lots of finance.
Guest Speaker
This Sunday Natalie Williams, who leads Jubilee+, will be preaching for us. Jubilee+ is a UK-based Christian charity, dedicated to equipping churches to effectively support and transform the lives of those experiencing poverty in their local community. They provide resources and training to empower churches to integrate mercy, justice and community renewal into their outreach plans.
Natalie is a gifted speaker and author, and we’re blessed to have her with us – especially as we work towards the launch of our Community Grocery in the autumn.
Please be praying for a great meeting on Sunday and for God to speak to us powerfully as a church and as individuals, laying in a great foundation for the future of all we do.
Easter Services
We have two big moments over the Easter weekend:
Good Friday, 6pm to 7.30pm: We’ll have an evening of extended worship, with a short talk, and we’ll also take communion together. Kids are welcome, though please be aware that there won’t be any separate groups for them, so we’ll be worshipping together as families.
Easter Sunday, 9am and 11am: Easter is one of those great moments in the year: it’s joyful, meaningful, and accessible, and it’s a brilliant time to invite someone to church. I want to encourage you to think especially about people who perhaps used to be part of church life and have drifted away, although this is definitely an invitation suitable for everyone.
This coming week is a natural moment to extend that invitation – gently, thoughtfully – and we’ve got invitation cards available to help with that, if you’d like them – you can pick them up on Sunday.
Please be praying for many guests to join us on Easter Sunday and for God’s wisdom about who YOU could invite. Please also pray that the presence of God is all over everything we do.
Please Pray For All Of These Things!
We believe in a God who answers prayer, so please bring these requests before God. And lastly, here’s a quick reminder that we’ll be gathering in person to pray on Sunday 11th May at Welcome Church from 6pm to 7pm – please put that in your diary now.
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We’re looking forward to a big Sunday this weekend at Welcome Church. It’s Mother’s Day, and we’re going to be giving thanks for LOTS of new babies who’ve been born into our church over the last year or so.
Baby Thanksgiving
A baby thanksgiving, sometimes referred to as a dedication, is a great opportunity for us to give thanks to God. It’s not a Christening or a baptism, but it is an act of worship to God, as parents make promises before God, and we as a church stand with them and pray for them. It also follows the example of Jesus, who was presented to God as an infant at the Temple.
On the day we’ll also ‘lay hands’ on these children as we pray for them and bless them in the name of Jesus, using some very well known words from Numbers 6v24-26:
“May the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace.”
According to Hebrews 11v20-21, blessing someone is something we can do by faith, so we really can and should expect God to hear us, and to bring great blessings into the lives of these children and their families. Let’s go for this in faith together!
At our 9am meeting we currently have 10 babies lined up to be prayed for, including one set of twins, and at our 11am meeting we have 14 babies ready to be prayed for. It’s not too late to join them if you didn’t realise this was going on, or if you just forgot to sign up. Do get in touch with the church office and let us know.
Marking Mother’s Day
In addition to praying for the babies and their families, we’ll also be marking Mother’s Day with special refreshments: there will be pancakes available for all on arrival, in addition to our usual coffee, tea and pastries.
We’ll also be giving a chocolate gift to every woman who is with is on the day – young or old, whether you’re a mum or not – because you all bring so much to our church family!
Below is a photo of a painting that Sabrina did to mark the occasion for us this year; you’ll be able to view the original on Sunday.
Invitations
This Sunday could also be a great opportunity for you to invite someone to church. Why not invite mum, grandma or great grandma if they are still with you? If you have grown up kids, why not invite them? If none these apply to you, invite a friend anyway.
We’ll have a great meeting with excellent free refreshments, lively worship, a poignant video and a clear message about Jesus, to accompany giving thanks to God for all the new life He has given us. And you could even go out for lunch together afterwards.
I look forward to seeing you at the weekend
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Our plans for Church Gate are continuing to move forward. In case anyone is unsure, Church Gate is the three storey office block next door to our current site. We’ve bought it and are in process of redeveloping it for use as a Social Action Hub with a Community Grocery on the ground floor, and also to serve our Children’s and Youth work each week too.
This week an inspection of the roof was carried out, so I took the opportunity to take a closer look myself – courtesy of the cherry picker. Well… why not?
For clarity, I don’t know much about roofing but I enjoyed the ride despite an innate fear of heights. I also took note of how much higher the cherry picker at the Hilton Hotel behind me was – I don’t think that’s a job for me!
Progress Update
In terms of a progress update, things continue to move forward on track:
Various building surveys have been carried out (such as the one on the roof)
Some grant applications have been submitted. Benefact Trust came back very quickly with a grant of £80,000, and we are now waiting to hear back from some others, including our biggest application which is to Your Fund Surrey
The floor layouts have been finalised
The architects drawings are in
Planning Permission for a new entrance has been submitted, and we expect to hear back during April (we are not expecting this to be a problem)
A thorough refurbishment of the lift has been commissioned
Various other quotes are coming in
The main part of the project is going out to tender next week, with quotes expected during April, and building work expected to begin over the summer for completion during the autumn
The Grocery team are in process of finalising an agreement with The Message Trust who we will be working with for the grocery
Outstanding Gift Day pledges continue to be fulfilled, alongside a few extra gifts too – so a big thank you for that. By the way, it’s still not too late to give to this amazing project!
In summary, things are moving ahead well and I’m looking forward to seeing the hoardings go up and the building work begin.
Prayer requests
Please be praying about this project as it goes ahead. Here are some specific prayer requests:
For a simple ‘YES’ to our planning application. As I said above, we’re not expecting any issues, but let’s not be complacent
For the release of significant grant funding, especially from Your Fund Surrey
For good quotes for the work to be done, with prices we are happy to pay
For wisdom as we pick the best main contractor to work with
For a great relationship to be formed with The Message Trust
For the whole Grocery Team – especially Helen who will be leading a lot of this through in the months ahead
For God to release all the finance we need to do this well
For no unexpected surprises – talking of which…
What about the state of the roof?
We knew there were a couple of leaks from the roof when we bought the building, and this week was the moment the situation was assessed properly. The outcome was not as positive as our best hopes, but nowhere near as bad as it could have been either.
In summary, repairs are needed to the flashing around the gutters, and some of the metal panels you can see from below need to be replaced or overlaid too. It’s a bit more work than we’d hoped for, but not outside our range of expectations, and with what we’d seen inside it could have been a whole lot worse.
We can’t call this an unexpected surprise, since we knew this was a real possibility from the start, but please be praying that there are no unexpected extras across the rest of the project as the work goes forward.
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As a church, our vision is to see Life Transformed Through Jesus, and our Sunday meetings play a vital role in that.
Both of our meetings are growing, but the 11am meeting is now reaching capacity on some weeks, and this is the meeting where we see the most first-time guests and have the greatest potential for numerical growth as a church.
When the meeting gets full it can be hard for visitors to find a seat—especially families or groups arriving together. If people feel there’s no room, they may not come back.
With this in mind we’re launching a new initiative called Go Nine
What is Go Nine?
Go Nine is very simple: to create space for more people to encounter Jesus at Welcome Church, we’re asking for 150 committed, pioneering individuals – including children and youth – to move from the 11am meeting to the 9am meeting on a long-term basis.
We know this is a big ask for those who move, but our church has always been willing to be flexible and make sacrifices for the sake of the gospel—it’s in our DNA. We are people who take the gospel seriously, so I know this will be taken seriously too.
What do you want me to do?
If you’re already committed to the 9am meeting, we’re not asking you to do anything other than to pray for this initiative, and get ready to welcome some more new people.
If you attend the 11am meeting, we’d love you to take some time to pray and reflect on whether this is the right move for you to make. Please discuss it with others you know and love in the church—and don’t forget to factor in the impact on any children you have and on there friendships too. Let’s do this in community and not just make solo decisions. LifeGroup leaders: you might even decide to move as a whole group.
If you do decide to move then we don’t want you to do it straight away – we’ve set aside Sunday 11th May as ‘Moving Day’.
Why 150 people?
We don’t want everyone, or even most people, to move – only 150.
Here’s the big picture:
The 11am meeting is about 110 adults larger than 9am
On any given Sunday, up to ⅓ of the church is absent for various reasons
Roughly 25% of attendees are in the children’s and youth work each week
Adding these facts together, if 150 people (including children and youth) move to 9am, this will free up some helpful space for more people at the 11am meeting each week, whilst keeping that meeting strong and also not overcrowding the 9am meeting.
It gets full sometimes!
Next Steps
On Sundays at the 11am meeting we’ll be giving out response cards for you to take away, pray through, and discuss with others. We’re not looking for a quick decision—we want this to be a faith-filled, prayerful step.
If you feel called to move, then you can then return your card to a dedicated Go Nine response box on a Sunday morning, or you can drop it into the church offices.
The deadline to let us know is Easter Sunday (April 20th).
That gives us three weeks before ‘Moving Day’ to work through any implications for our serving teams and to be ready. By the way, we’re assuming that people’s current Sunday serving roles will move meeting with them; this is not a time to stop serving, though it could be a time for some to step up!
When do we want people to move?
We’re not asking anyone to move immediately. Remember we’ve set aside a specific date:
The 11th May is Moving Day!
Do I have to move if I don’t want to?
Not at all! We don’t want everyone to move from 11am to 9am – only enough to create some extra space. If you’ve prayed about it and feel that staying at 11am is right for you, there’s no pressure to move. We’re also aware that many people, for a whole host of reasons, regularly vary which meeting they attend, and that’s fine – we have room for flexibility. The Go Nine initiative won’t be for everyone.
Got More Questions?
If you have questions then please head over to our dedicated Go Nine webpage. You can access that by clicking here. It has lots more information and answers to some common questions.
Let’s remember why we’re doing this:
Back in 2017 (Yes! It was almost eight years ago!) we asked for some people to move from the 9am to the 11am meeting because it was struggling. That decision helped 11am grow well, just as we’d hoped, and it’s now our biggest meeting! Now, to keep reaching new people, we need to take action again. Go Nine is simply the next step in creating a healthy culture for growth.
All welcome, come as you are.
Thanks in advance for taking this seriously and thanks for all your prayers
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I hope you enjoyed the baptisms last Sunday morning at Welcome Church; it’s always a joy to see people taking this step of faith!
This coming week has some key events in it too:
Our Life Group hosting teams will be getting together on Saturday evening for a “Life Group Hosts Celebration”, with a Prosecco reception, and some great food, music and activities
Christopher will be continuing our ‘Romans’ preaching series on Sunday morning – don’t forget your Romans book if you have one
On Sunday evening we’ll gather for our next Prayer Meeting from 6pm til 7pm. I’ll be leading us through our time together; please make it a priority. Why not attend as a family? You could even help your kids join in and learn to pray
Then on Wednesday (12th) we have our next Try Alpha evening. It’s not too late to invite friends to attend this with you. If you want more information about Alpha or need to book tickets please use this link.
Leadership Conference 2025
We’re part of a family of churches called Commission. There’s an excellent Commission event taking place in June this year, which we wanted to let you know about. The Commission Leadership Conference will take place at Citygate Church, Bournemouth, from Wednesday 18th to Friday 20th June 2025.
This event is for anyone in our Commission churches, across all the nations where we’re working, who holds a leadership position of any kind, inside or outside the church: small group leaders, kids leaders, youth leaders, trustees, serving team leaders, workplace and community leaders and more – if you lead something then you’re invited!
Some great speakers
Alongside the excellent worship and ministry, there are some great speakers at the conference, including:
Dave Devenish
Rachel Wilson
Mike Betts
Natalie Williams
Adrian Holloway
Vinu Paul
Emmanuel Pothen
Simon Argent
AND many more, including two of our very own from Welcome Church: Luke Simone and Christopher Hawes.
Luke will be flying in from Brazil to speak in a seminar, and Chris will be preaching the main session on the Friday morning. It’s shaping up to be a great event.
Most of our office team will be attending this year, and we wanted to let everyone else know about it too. All the details, prices and timings can be found using this link. If you do book a ticket, please let us know so we can look out for you at the event.
See you at the weekend!
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Spring is in the air, daffodils and crocuses are appearing in the garden, and it will be March on Saturday. As we come to the end of February, here are a few Welcome Church Updates and prayer requests to keep you in the picture:
Grant Applications – some good news
Our grant application to Your Fund Surrey, who we are applying to for funding towards launching our new Community Grocery, went in last week. We received over 1000 positive comments on the Your Fund Surrey website, which we were very pleased with.
Here is a word cloud we received from Your Fund Surrey about the comments people made:
And here is a Pie Chart showing how positive people felt:
The application is for just under £500,000, and we will hear back about it in June. Please pray for a positive outcome.
In the meantime we also applied to an organisation called The Benefact Trust, who are a Christian grant funder. They replied very quickly with a “YES”, and we received a cheque from them this week for £80,000. This is a wonderful encouragement and a sign of God’s provision for us as a church.
We are looking at some other grant funders now too, and would love to raise £800,000 in total from grants, so do pray for this whole process.
Big Weekend Away
This month we opened the booking for our Welcome Church Big Weekend Away which takes place on the Bank Holiday weekend in August – Friday 22nd to Monday 25th August 2025.
Roughly half of the available places have been booked so far, so don’t delay booking – you could miss out. When it’s full it’s full!
The weekend away takes place at Braggers WoodCamp Site in the New Forest. We have the whole place to ourselves this year.
You’ll get to enjoy connecting with others from Welcome Church over delicious meals (all included), fun activities, day trips, or simply relaxing in our marquee. We will also seek God together as a church family, enjoying times of worship and teaching, and looking at what it means to belong to His family. We’d love to see you there; there is something for everyone!
This Sunday morning, 2nd March, we will be baptising people at our 9am and 11am meetings. We’ll be baptising a total of 8 people, 4 in each of our meetings.
Baptisms are always a great moment to celebrate what God is doing in our church and a great opportunity to invite friends to church too.
Please be praying for all those getting baptised this weekend.
We have had some interesting contacts so far, but please don’t hesitate to share this opportunity far and wide. In the mean time we would really value your prayers that God leads us to the right person to fill this key vacancy.
Some other employment opportunities will follow as the year goes by, so watch this space for those too.
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I shared in a blog at the start of this year that we would be looking for new some new, employed members of the Welcome Church team this year, and we’re excited to say thatour new Pastoral Lead is the first role we’re looking to fill.
We need to increase our ability and capacity to respond to the more urgent and immediate pastoral needs of the church, and we also need to prepare to support the increasing pastoral needs that will come both with further growth, and through our Welcome Works ministries, such as the upcoming community grocery.
Who are we looking for?
We’re looking for someone who can lead the planning and the practical delivery of pastoral care across the church. They will also bring leadership to our small group ministries – our ‘LifeGroups’ and ‘LearnGroups’. These small groups will become increasingly important for maintaining our family culture and ethos, as we become a larger church and are key to pastoral care too.
The right person will be someone who does some of the ‘doing’ – such as responding to urgent pastoral needs – but we’re also particularly looking for someone who can enable and support the skilled and dedicated leaders we already have operating in these areas; we are looking for a leader of leaders who’s able to think strategically about how we care well for those who God brings into our family, and who can build teams and work through others.
This is a key role in our church and a senior one.
We’ll be searching for the right person through a number of avenues, and one of those is through this blog. If you’re interested to know more, we’ve developed a job specification and details of how to apply which you can access via this link. Please don’t be shy in coming forward if you feel something stirring in your heart and think this may be something you’d like to explore further, and please don’t hesitate to get in touch for a confidential chat – we’d love to hear from you.
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Hello! It’s Dub Everitt here, Outreach Pastor at Welcome Church, and I’m excited to be guest-writing Steve’s blog this week!
I want to update you on the renovation of our new building – the ‘Church Gate’ office block – and invite you to take action today to help make a huge difference in our community.
An Incredible Journey So Far
Many of you played a vital role in our gift days in November 2023 and June 2024, helping us raise an incredible £2 million toward the £3 million purchase of Church Gate, which we completed (with the help of a mortgage!) in May 2024. Of the money given so far, £400,000 has been set aside towards the renovation costs.
One of the key ways we’ll use this space is to launch a Community Grocery – a project that will provide affordable food and essential support services to those who need it most.
What Is A Community Grocery?
A Community Grocery is a ‘social supermarket’ designed to help families struggling with the cost of living. It’s an initiative founded by The Message Trust in Manchester, offering deeply discounted food while preserving dignity and choice for members, who can select the items they need to best support themselves.
For just £5 per year, people can sign up for membership, and then they can shop for between £5 and £12.50 a week, saving up to £50 per week—that’s £2,500 a year!
But it’s more than just groceries. Members can also connect to our other initiatives such as debt advice, money coaching, cooking courses, mental health & wellbeing groups, job clubs, and more. In 2024, we helped 169 individuals through these services, and this new space will allow us to expand our impact to reach 1,000 grocery members in our first year.
This is a project that will change lives in our community.
Where Are We Now?
We’ve been working closely with our architects, Plan A – the same team who were behind the design of our chapel, which we opened in 2020. The renovation plans for Church Gate are now complete, and the costs for redevelopment and for fitting out the building have been estimated at £1.2 million.
We have the first £400,000, and we’re now working hard to secure the remaining £800,000 through grants. If all goes to plan, we’ll start construction in June or July and open the doors before the end of the year.
It’s Time To Ask For Your Support!
We recently submitted our first grant application to a Christian Grant Funder, and the feedback was amazing:
“Hi Dub, just to let you know I’ve read your draft and it’s EXCELLENT! Honestly, brilliant. I have no doubt our trustees will want to make a contribution. I wanted to congratulate you on such a well-planned project that is clearly going to change (and probably save) lives.”
This funder will confirm their decision by mid-February, so let’s be praying for a positive outcome!
The largest grant we’re applying for is £497,000 from Your Fund Surrey, part of Surrey County Council. We’ve had great conversations with their team, and we’re preparing our application ahead of the February 28th deadline.
But we now need your help to get it across the line.
Here’s Your Call To Action!
To help our application to succeed, we need to show strong local support – and that’s where YOU come in. We are now looking to gain at least 1,000 comments on Surrey County Council’s “Have Your Say” webpage to demonstrate how much our community supports this project.
At the time of writing, we have 692 comments, which means we still need 308 more.
Can you take 2 minutes to help?
If so, it’s very quick and easy to do, and fairly self-explanatory. Here are the four steps:
1. Click on this link to go through to the Have Your Saywebpage
2. Hit the big smiley face on the page.
3. Leave a short comment about why you support the Community Grocery and any other comments you may want to make, and then add your email address when prompted to do so
4. Check your e-mails for a link to click on to confirm that the comments you made are yours. If the link doesn’t arrive do check your junk box too
That’s it—you’ll be done before your kettle boils!
Your endorsement, along with others, could help to secure nearly £500,000 to support people in need across our town.
One Last Thing: Please Spread the Word!
Once you’ve shared your comment, please pass the link to the Have Your Say webpage on to others: to your friends, family, colleagues, neighbours, or anyone who cares about making a difference in our community. Please feel free to share it on your social media feeds too.
The more people we can get behind this, the greater the impact we can have together.
Thanks in advance for all your help
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