In April this year I’ll be flying off to Togo! 🇹🇬 Here’s what’s going on:
In 2019, Welcome Church launched a partnership with Compassion UK, focussing on Togo in Western Africa. Togo is one of the least developed countries in the world and Compassion work in partnership with local churches there to see children released from poverty in Jesus’ name. They bring a lot of this about through a sponsorship model, through which you can sponsor a child and build a relationship with them through letters, photographs and prayer.
Compassion are Christ centred, Church based and Child focussed – values that connect well with us at Welcome Church, and they work to help the poorest of the poor. Jo and I have sponsored children with them for many years now, and it’s been a joy to write letters to those children and receive updates, photos and letters in return.
Our Church Partnership
When we launched this partnership with Compassion we gave people the chance to sponsor a child in Togo, and many responded to that (another chance will come up to do that in May this year!)
We also gave 10% of our June 2019 Building Project Gift Day to a UK government backed “matched funding” initiative for Compassion to fund Child Survival Projects in Togo. We gave just over £40,000 to that appeal which, due to the matched funding initiative, was doubled to £80,000.
This is vital work because, in Togo, 1 in 20 babies die before their first birthday, mostly from preventable causes, and 1 in 58 women die due to pregnancy or childbirth. These are shocking statistics, and Compassion are working to change this through their Child Survival Projects, which are run by local churches in Togo. As a result of our giving a new Child Survival Project was opened.
Latest Update and a Trip
On Sunday 14th April I will be flying out to Togo for 5 days, with Compassion, to see the project we’ve funded first hand. During this trip I will also get to meet some of the children we are sponsoring, including a girl who Jo and I sponsor. Please pray for this trip!
We recently received an update on the Child Survival Project. It’s a great report with lots of photos and includes an encouraging letter from one of the mothers who has been helped. The report is attached, so please be encouraged to download it and read it.
If you’ve been around Welcome Church for a while you’ve probably noticed that we’ve grown a lot numerically over the last couple of years, and much faster than we expected. We’re often seeing around 1000 people on a Sunday morning now and new people are still appearing regularly. This is great news, and what it now means is that:
The 9am meeting has grown well, but still has space for more people to attend
The 11am meeting has grown a lot more, and is now almost full (and occasionally overfull)
11am being full is a nice problem to have … but it’s still a genuine problem, especially because we want to continue to grow and reach new people, so we need your help.
The way forward
Assuming we continue to grow (which is not guaranteed, but we pray it continues) we will need to make more space somehow; perhaps we need to make the space in order to continue to grow.
We could, of course, create space by starting a third Sunday meeting at a different time, or by starting a new ‘site’ of Welcome Church in another part of town, or by some new ‘church plants’ being sent out … any or all of these are possible in the future as God leads us.
HOWEVER … right now our big focus is on getting Church Gate up and running (click here for details) and we expect that this will absorb most of our teams capacity for the next season.
Thankfully, at this point in time, we do have another option to create some more space on Sundays … so with this in mind we want to make a few requests of those who call Welcome Church their church.
Some requests for those who usually attend at 11am
Firstly, for the sake of the gospel and for the sake of our mission to Woking, we would like to ask for at least 50 adults (plus their families) who currently attend the 11am meeting each week, to move to the 9am meeting instead. It’s a big ask, we realise, but we would ask you to please take this request very seriously. It could be the single most evangelistic thing you do all year.
There are some advantages to attending at 9am: easier parking, better choice of pastries, and an earlier finish, leaving you more of the day free to enjoy.
We would love at least 50 brave pioneering people, plus their families, to make this call for the sake of all that God is calling us to as a church . Maybe there are a couple of life groups who might make this call together. Please pray and ask God: is it me/us?
Obviously we don’t want everyone to do this, so it would help a lot if you could let us know that you’re making the switch by emailing us (click here for a link). Some have done this already – thank you. We will have to work through the impact on serving rotas too, so it will really help for people to let us know.
Secondly, for those who don’t move to 9am, you could help a lot by filling up from the front and using every seat – just 2 empty seats in each row is 80 empty seats in the meeting, so please use them all 🙂
Some requests for those who usually attend at 9am
Firstly, please don’t start attending at 11am – we have no room for you 🙂 – please stay where you are!
Secondly, please be on the front foot to invite guests and welcome new people. 9am has grown more slowly than 11am, but it is still growing with new people.
Thirdly, we actually need a few more people to serve in some key areas at 11am! This may sound counter-intuitive with the extra number of people in attendance at 11am, but the needs are actually greater at this meeting too, and many who attend are still new to us. It means that the demands for serving have grown more quickly than those ready and able to do so are available. Maybe you could consider attending at 9am, but serving at 11am one week in three? If you’re up for this adventure please let us know by emailing us (using this link) and we’ll be in touch
One more thing
Please pray for God’s wisdom and timing in all we do – especially that he would guide us clearly in terms of starting any new meetings or sites in the future, and also that we’d get the keys to Church Gate by the end of March. Of course, if we continue to grow, every step like this will only be a temporary step!
I’m looking forward to the next chapter in our adventure together as a church, whatever that may be. Thanks in advance for your help!
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I’m delighted to announce that Jonathan and Sabrina arrived this week from India. They will be here for a year, working in the Welcome Church Offices as “Leadership Trainees”.
I asked Jonathan to write an ‘introduction to them both’ for us as a church (I’d have asked Sabrina too, but she has no sooner arrived than she’s been laid up with a bad cold and sore throat – probably the result of living in 3 different countries in 3 weeks …)
Here’s what Jonathan had to say:
“Hello! It’s always a little weird having to write an introduction about yourself. There’s something about writing things down, as opposed to speaking in conversation, that feels like it’s being set in stone. Like everything I say is on the record and will have existed beyond the limits of a verbal introduction. However, I will do my best as I briefly let you know who we are. Before that though, thank you Steve for having me on your blog. Love what you’ve done with the place! 😉
“My name is Jonathan. I’m a 20-something aged film and board-game lover who hails from Mumbai, India. It was only earlier this year that I married my best friend Sabrina, who comes from Visalia, California. How we ended up together is quite a story; you might even call it a miracle.
“Like I said, I was born and raised in Mumbai, India. I was born into a Christian family. My father (Vinu – some of you may know him) has led our local church for as long as I can remember. I am what you could call a pure-blooded PK (‘Pastors Kid’ for those wondering!) I love film and music, and have dreams to write and direct my own features someday. I am a storyteller at heart, and that permeates everything I do, or have done. I’m also a musician.
“Sabrina was born and raised in California and can be considered a half-blood PK (her dad was a youth pastor briefly). She is a highly creative, funny and artistic woman, who is excellent with kids and that has permeated everything she has ever done. She loves working with youth especially.
“We met in 2021 when I traveled to the USA to do a year long Bible school that Sabrina’s home church was organising. We both come from very different cultures and backgrounds (I’m Indian; she’s of Hispanic origin – a Mexican American), and it is truly God who brought us together. We are so grateful for it.
“We got engaged in February 2023 and planned to get married in November of that year. Everything was set in place, bookings were made, deposits paid. However, on returning to the US after a short visit home, I was denied entry and deported on grounds of having an incorrect visa (there’s a whole other story there …)
“Every plan, dream, and desire seemed to be crushed in that moment. We were forced to pivot whilst not really knowing what was next or why any of it had happened. Long story short: God had a plan all along. As part of that very plan, here I am, writing on Steve’s blog.
“At the same time as the USA closed it’s doors on me, India began to close its doors on Sabrina in a different way, as she developed all kinds of health complications related to being in India (not least, she has a severe tree nut allergy and India loves nuts). So we got before God and asked him to lead us and to send us where he wanted us to go. We both had plans and jobs serving God is the USA, so the question became ‘If not here Lord, then where?’
“That’s when Steve invited us to join Welcome Church for a year as Leadership Trainees. After much prayer and consideration – not least of the weather 🙂 – the answer was clear: this was God’s plan; this is where we needed to be; this is what He was building up to all along.
“In many ways England is a perfect middle ground for us. A little bit of similarity to the USA, a little bit of similarity to India and a whole lot that is completely new to us.
So we were married in India and, just 2 weeks later, packed our bags and moved to Woking.
“And now we’re here. Ready, willing, and able. Ready for God to use us in a new place, in a new culture and amongst a new people. Willing to say ‘Yes’ to God in this new season in whatever He’s calling us into. And able to serve his church and kingdom in whatever way he sees fit.
“We are very excited to join Welcome church and, in case you were wondering, you are true to your name! We have felt very accepted into this family already, and are eager to begin this journey God is taking us on.
“Our plans may fail and then some, but God knows best and we have faith in his mission for our lives.“
Let’s look out for them both
God has entrusted something precious to us as a church in sending Jonathan and Sabrina our way. It’s His doing, so let’s be faithful with this gift of two developing leaders.
Jonathan and Sabrina each come from a different culture – India and the USA. Now they are starting out on married life in a third culture. Let’s look out for them both, and pray for them. Let’s make them feel really welcome for the year ahead.
Dinner invites will be appreciated for sure – but remember: no nuts!
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Last weekend, our amazing Youth team took 84 of our Welcome Youth to Runways End in Aldershot for a non-stop weekend of outdoor activities, teaching, craft, food, games, and worshipping God together.
Year 7–9 slept in dormitories in the main building (including the occasional vertigo-inducing triple bunk!) while Year 10–13 took the heated “camping pods” (more glamorous than they sound).
James, who heads up the youth team, says:
“Our memory verse for the weekend was,
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us (Galatians 3:13)
“In the talks, we looked at the catastrophic results of The Fall, and how the whole of creation has come under a curse, facing guilt and shame, death, and separation from God; but then we saw the wonder of what Jesus did for us on the cross, reversing the curse by taking it on himself, taking our guilt and shame, taking our death sentence, and being separated from his Father, so that the curse could be lifted from us. Finally we looked ahead to the new creation still to come, where guilt and shame are gone, there will be no more death, and we will be in God’s presence for ever.
“That gave us plenty to thank God for, so we spent time together worshipping him for his goodness, and praising him for reversing the curse by sending Jesus!
“Also we got big spiky hats and threw sausages at them.“
Here are some pics to capture a few highlights from the time away
We love our Youth!
We love seeing them each Friday evening and Sunday morning, but the weekend away is a rare opportunity to spend an extended period of time together, forging deeper relationships, and going deeper in our walk with Jesus.
Highlights from the team
We asked the youth team to give us their individual highlights from the weekend. This is what came back:
Ruby: “Cassie squeezing into a tiny wooden box to explain the Temple”
David:“Youth who initially didn’t want to get their clothes muddy literally rolling around in the mud to steal a beanbag”
Ben:“Michael telling Euan to turn his alarm off”
Zac: “Going round bashing pots and pans to wake them all up”
Lucy: “Watching one of the Youth praying for another”
Chioma:“Arielle reciting the memory verse by heart, and then carrying on and reciting the bit we hadn’t even learnt”
Crispy:“Half of the youth not knowing how to put a new bin bag in a bin”
Thanks & Prayer
I want to say a big THANK YOU to our youth leaders for putting this event on, and for all the time and effort they put in to it. Parents, please do say your own thank you’s too
Let’s all be praying for good fruit to come from this time away together
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Luke Simone has been part of our Welcome Church family for over 30 years, although you may not have seen him around very much recently! Why? He was a finance lawyer in London and New York before God called him to work among the least and the lost in Brazil.
Casa Cruzeiro
The work Luke started in a Favela (a slum) in Rio has steadily progressed from the first act of simply opening the doors of his living room almost a decade ago. When the neighbour’s rooftop could no longer support the number of people who were coming for prayer and to hear a simple Bible story, he and a friend established “Casa Cruzeiro” – a community centre and school grounded in the gospel and located at the highest point of the Rio slum that has become his home.
Luke and the small team now serve up to 200 children and teenagers (and their wider families) each week, offering a safe and welcoming space for vulnerable, marginalised and disenfranchised youth in a neighbourhood fractured by gang violence and poverty.
Why is this needed?
Many of the young people in the Favela leave school illiterate or struggle with even the most basic principles of maths and Portuguese. The school they’ve established in the heart of the community now has over 70 students (aged 5 to 75) providing essential tuition to the poorest, who are often failed by the school system. The teachers also provide counseling to the younger children who frequently show signs of trauma through abuse in their homes or the loss of family members due to gang violence.
As the young people leave school, the team gives additional support and career counseling for the next steps, together with an opportunity to offer places on pre-vocational courses, providing simple and practical steps that enable those they work with to be able to eventually provide for themselves and their families.
Alongside all this is the gospel, and they’ve had the incredible joy of seeing young people give their lives to Christ, get baptised and be discipled – no small thing in the Favela.
What does it look like to be on mission far from home?
Living in the Favela is not without risks. Gun violence and drugs are among the many day to day issues, alongside poverty, abuse and neglect. Despite all this, as Christopher shared in his preach last Sunday (quoting Paul from 1 Thessalonians):
“We were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us”(1 Thess 2v8)
Luke and the team’s overriding goal is to love and serve their neighbours, without an agenda, by sharing their everyday lives. They are aiming to live out the call of Christ day by day and to shine the light of Jesus in the darkness that is all around.
The work in this slum is very much a marathon rather than a sprint, but they are seeing lives impacted by the power of God with a goal of community-wide transformation – a break in the cycle of violence and brokenness faced by those on the margins. What Luke and the others have established is a “community within a community,” where disciples are made, relationships are strengthened and dignity is restored.
Welcome Church is on this mission too
Welcome Church takes mission (both at home and abroad!) very seriously. Luke doesn’t do this work alone!
As a church we have been, and we remain, very much part of Luke’s sending, with groups praying and raising financial support for the ongoing needs.
How YOU can get involved:
If you want to know more about this, or you’d like to to support Luke in this mission to Brazil there are several ways to do that:
2. Join the prayer group: There is a prayer group from Welcome Church who meet to pray for Luke and Casa Cruzeiro regularly. If you want to join them, please also use this link to send an e-mail and let him know – details will then be sent.
3. Give Financially: as a church we give to Luke each month out of our regular giving, HOWEVER there are a number of people who have wanted to give directly (in addition to their normal giving to Welcome Church) – and this has made all the difference. If you’d like to give directly to this work (either a one off gift or a regular monthly amount) you can do that by giving it to Welcome Church, and letting us know it’s for Luke Simone. We can then claim Gift Aid on your gift (if applicable) and pass both the gift and any Gift Aid on to Luke.
You can see more of Luke’s story by clicking here for a great video, but if you’d like to meet the man in person, he will be around this Sunday, at both the 9am and 11am meetings. I’ll be interviewing him briefly about his experiences in Rio and he’ll also be around to chat in person.
Here are some great photos from Casa Cruzeiro too:
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On Monday 29th January, Christians Against Poverty (CAP) joined us at our Welcome Cafe to hold a ‘PR day’ for the excellent work that CAP do to help release people from debt. The day was a great chance for them to promote what they do, working with churches across the country – including ours.
As a church we love to work with CAP and currently provide Debt Counselling, the Money Course, the Life Skills course, and a Job Club, and of course there is our Welcome Cafe each Monday. If you want to read more about what we do to serve our town, including our CAP services, please follow this link here. If you want to get involved or access a service for yourself please drop an email to connect@welcomechurch.uk
The output from the day is now starting to appear in the media, so I wanted to share a couple of links where you can see some of what went on or read about it. Welcome Church features quite strongly. Enjoy:
I want to take this chance to say “thank you” to everyone who’s involved in delivering these ministries at Welcome Church. Why not get involved yourself?
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We’re starting a brand new preaching series at Welcome Church this Sunday, and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll be preaching the first part of the series myself this weekend.
All change
If you look inside the green book we’ve been giving out from the start of this term, page 5 says that our spring preaching series is on the book of Exodus, and that was the plan. For a variety of boringly practical reasons, which I won’t list here, we decided to push that series back into May, so it will become more of a summer series.
Instead, for the next seven weeks, we’re going to look at the book of 1 Thessalonians from the New Testament. We’ve called the series, “Our Great Hope”, and of course it’s going to be all about Jesus.
Some Background To The Series
A little while ago I felt what I think was a ‘Holy Spirit nudge’ (you may know what I mean) that we should preach through this book in 2024. We would have done it later on this year, but we like to stay flexible as circumstances change and, after discussion, we decided to go for this first.
To give some background to the book itself: 1 Thessalonians is probably the earliest of Paul’s letters that we have, dating to around AD50 or 51. It was written to the church in Thessaloniki, in Greece, which Paul and Silas had planted. Sadly they were forced to move on from the church very quickly due to persecution breaking out and the church sending them away (see Acts 17v1-10)
Paul was subsequently very concerned about how the church was doing, so he sent his co-worker Timothy to find out. Timothy returned with a good report: the church were doing well, although they missed Paul and Silas. They did have some theological questions, including questions about what happens to Christians who die, and about the return of Jesus.
In response Paul, Silas and Timothy then wrote to the church to answer their questions, to encourage them to remain true to Jesus, and to spur them on to live holy and faithful lives in the midst of real persecution. That letter is the book of 1 Thessalonians that we have in our Bibles today.
The best summary of this book that I’ve come across is a short video created by The Bible Project. (It’s actually my favourite of all their videos that I’ve watched so far, and it even brought a small tear to my eye 😟)
Here are a few updates about what’s been going on at Welcome Church recently:
Solar Panels
Solar Panels have now been installed across the roof of the Chapel and have been up and running since Wednesday afternoon. Yesterday afternoon we could see that they were powering the whole of the chapel (although it was a ‘low demand’ time) as well as powering all of the heating in the front building and the offices. They were also selling power back to the grid.
Darren (our Ops Director) tells me he’s had a greater number of questions from people about the solar panels than about anything else we’ve done since the pandemic so, if you have any more questions, I just know he’ll be really glad to hear from you 😉
BeforeAfter
Big thanks to Pierre for the before and after photos taken from his flat in The Marches.
Sundays
Sunday numbers have grown again this term with a significant increase over January 2023. Our 11am meeting is feeling quite full, so we’re looking at what steps we can take to seat people more efficiently and maximise the room that we have available – watch this space. The 9am meeting is also growing in size, but does still have a bit more space than 11am so, if you want a slightly less crowded environment, easier parking, the best selection of pastries and an earlier finish, do consider moving to the 9am meeting – no pressure, but perhaps a good option for some people.
Elders Week Away
Our Elders week away went really well, and we appreciate all who prayed for us during that time.
We covered a lot of ground together and came away encouraged, and with a plan for seven specific areas of church life that we want to focus on over the next two years. I won’t list those here today because we will now take time to reflect, pray and refine things a little first, but I may come back to this in a subsequent blog.
Church Gate
Last week CAF Bank did their valuation on our site for the new mortgage, which brought us another step closer to getting the keys to Church Gate. We expect that we will soon be in a position for our solicitor to proceed to exchange and completion.
Alpha & Alpha Plus
Our Alpha course has been underway since the start of January, with more than 20 guests in regular attendance. This week we also launched Alpha Plus, which is for people who have completed Alpha and want to explore things further. This launched on Wednesday with more than 30 guests. Please pray for both of these courses: that people have a great time, that they keep coming along and that they encounter Jesus for themselves.
COMING SOON: The Commission Leadership Conference
One last thing I want to mention is the Commission Leadership Conference, which is coming up at the end of February (Wed 28th Feb to Fri 1st Mar).
This event (not to be confused with The Commission Festival in August) is for anyone in a Commission church who holds a leadership position of any kind, inside or outside the church – if you lead anything at all you’re invited!
The theme this year is ‘Leading Like Jesus’. We’ll be learning from the characteristics of Jesus’ ministry and in particular his example of serving and shepherding. The conference will be about inspiring us to lead with humility and courage, remembering that Jesus came to serve, not to be served. Speakers this year include Rico Tice and Michael Reeves(two of my personal favourites). I’ll be leading a seminar at some point myself too, as will Darren.
This event runs during term time on a Wednesday to a Friday, and it’s in Bournemouth, so I appreciate it won’t be accessible to everyone, but we wanted to highlight it for anyone who is interested and available. It costs £65 to book for the three days, and day tickets and an online option are also available. You would also need to factor in travel, meals and perhaps a hotel.
The Welcome Church Office Team will be in attendance, along with some from our Eldership Team, and if you want to be there too then you can book using this link. Do please let us know if you book so that we can look out for you at the event. We will aim to have dinner together on one of the evenings too.
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Last year as a church we received an Eco Church Award which we were really pleased to get. Christopher also preached about the importance of being Faithful With Our Planet during our autumn preaching series.
We’re now delighted to announce that next week we’re having Solar Panels fitted across the south facing roof of the chapel. Scaffolding will be up from Monday 15th to Friday 19th for this to be done, so if you see it and wonder what’s going on, now you know. If all the work goes according to schedule, the scaffolding will be gone before the following Sunday meeting.
Your Fund Surrey
One really exciting piece of news about these solar panels is that, not only will they save us money and burn less fossil fuels, but we haven’t even had to pay for them. The entire installation has been funded by Your Fund Surrey.
Big thanks go to Uti from our Office Team for making this happen and also to Lance Spencer, who sits on Surrey County Council, for his guidance, his drive and his assistance.
Week away
One last thing: please pray for us next week as we have our Eldership Team week away. We’ll be away together from Sunday afternoon until Thursday evening to pray for the church and seek God for his direction for the future. These times, which we’ve often done at the start of a year, have always been very significant for where we go as a church. Do please pray for us all.
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I hope you had a relaxing Christmas season and that 2024 has started off well.
It’s been great to kick off this year as a church with a week of prayer. If you haven’t made it to any of the meetings so far it’s not too late to join in – details are all in the image below. The week of prayer is for anyone who says that Welcome Church is their church, so do count yourself IN and get involved – even if you don’t really know how to pray! This is a great place to start and learn.
The meetings have been excellent so far with a real sense of God speaking to us. I’m especially looking forward to Sunday evening:
Reset Your Life
Our New Year preaching series starts this Sunday (7th Jan) so make sure you don’t miss it! It’s called Reset Your Life and is based in The Lord’s Prayer. It’s a great opportunity to invite friends to church, especially people who came to the Carol Service. See you there.
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