Could you help someone get back into work through our Welcome Church Job Club?

Imagine coming alongside someone who has been out of work for months—building their confidence, helping them improve their applications and interview skills, and then finally hearing the words: “I got the job!”

That’s what our Welcome Church Job Club is all about!

Could you play a part in making that happen for someone in our community?

What have we been up to?

Over the last five years, we have run 14 Job Club courses with 165 people taking part—many connecting with Welcome Church for the very first time. Attendees receive practical teaching, encouragement, and one-to-one coaching to help them take their next steps toward employment.

And the results have been fantastic:

Around 50% of participants have gone on to find work.

But Job Club is about much more than just employment. People grow in confidence, feel valued, and discover a community of people they can belong to. Many have made lasting friendships, and some have gone on to connect more widely with the Welcome Church family too.

Could you join the team?

We are looking for enthusiastic people to join our Job Club team. You do not need to be a recruitment expert. If you have experience in the workplace, enjoy encouraging others, and can help someone take their next step, you have exactly what we need.

The course material is already provided, so we are simply looking for people who can help bring it to life by drawing on their own workplace experiences.

We run three courses each year. Each course is made up of eight weekly, 90-minute sessions (usually held on a Saturday or Monday morning, or early afternoon). Sessions combine short videos and practical teaching with discussions, team-building exercises, and role-play. We aim to mix useful professional guidance with plenty of encouragement—and plenty of fun!

There are two key ways you can get involved:

Become a Job Coach: Help present the course material and coach jobseekers. Coaches complete a short online training course provided by Christians Against Poverty (CAP).

Become a Befriender: Come alongside jobseekers, join in with discussions and activities, offer encouragement, and help people feel deeply welcomed and supported.

Whether you’re helping someone improve an application, prepare for an interview, rebuild their confidence or celebrate the moment they find work, you could play a part in making a genuine difference in someone’s life.

Other ways to get involved

Job Club is just one of the ways we’re helping people through Welcome Works. We also run Money Coaching, Life Skills Workshops, Kintsugi Hope groups, Cooking Courses, Debt Support, and more. There are fantastic opportunities to get involved across all of these areas.

So, if Job Club isn’t quite the right fit for you, but you would still love to use your time, skills, and experience to make a practical difference, we would love to hear from you.

Interested in finding out more?

Please contact Dub here, or speak directly to Neil Willis, our Job Club Manager

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Christians Against Poverty PR Day

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:

Here’s a link to an article from The Church Times

Here’s an article from Woking News and Mail

Here’s a link to a great video on Facebook

Here are some pics from the day:

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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John Kirkby, founder of CAP, speaking at Welcome Church

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.