The tours of our new building, Church Gate, have been very popular this last week, and it’s been great hearing all the feedback. Here’s a tiny selection of just a few of the comments made so far (we’ve been giving out feedback forms):
“The building is so much bigger than I expected – it just keeps on going!”
“I feel a real sense of peace looking round Church Gate, despite the work that now needs to be done. Having more room for age appropriate activities is something my kids will really enjoy.”
“It really is right next to our current church building! I feel like it’s an extension of our church. Parents can feel safe to drop the kids next door. All the plans are good but my favourite part is the Grocery and Welcome Cafe for the poor. We have God’s blessings and we know what to do. Church Gate will be a hope for many people!”
“As part of Welcome Youth the fact there will be loads of space for us is so great”
“I’m excited by the opportunity to really grow the social action aspect of what we do as a church – to go to the next level of caring for our community”
“As a parent I’m excited at the potential of a custom space for our children’s work”
“It excites me that there is such a clear, big vision for Church Gate.”
“The outdoor space will be a blessing for our youth“
“This is a key enabler for our growth as a church“
“I feel deeply emotional because I know that I will not be alive to see all that comes from this; future generations will be blessed and I get to sow into them today as others in the past have done for us. It does my heart and soul good.”
“The vision for this is great; a lot of lives will be blessed”
Wow! And that’s just a tiny selection of the comments made so far. If you haven’t booked a tour yet please be aware that this Saturday (15th) is your last chance because work will start as soon as possible. You can book onto a tour by clicking here.
By the way, we now have power inside Church Gate and the lights are on!
A Very Special Guest
I’m delighted that our friend Vinu Paul is over from India this coming week. Vinu leads the team that oversees the Commission Churches in India, and he also gives input to our team here at Welcome Church. He won’t be speaking for us on a Sunday during this trip because he’s mainly here for meetings with the Commission UK Team and will be needed elsewhere.
Whilst he’s here though, he will be meeting with our eldership team and will also be joining us for the 12pm Church Gate tour on Saturday. I reckon he’ll have travelled further than anyone else to see the new building … 🙂
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I’m looking forward to our first Church Gate open day this Saturday (8th June). This will be a great opportunity for Welcome Church people to look around our new building and see the size of the challenge that we’ve taken on – before it becomes a building site!
If you haven’t booked a slot yet, you can do so on this link here. There are further opportunities on the evening of Monday 10th June (click here) and the morning of Saturday 15th June (click here).
Why should I bother to come to an open day?
Although it might be tempting to sit back and wait for the work to be done (as someone said, “I’ll see it when it’s finished” …) I would love as many of us as possible to make the effort to see the new building as it is right now.
Despite all of us having busy diaries, there are several reasons for this:
1. Ownership: we need to own this project together as a church, and to do that we do need to actually come and see what’s going on – it’s OUR building.
2.Prayer: we all need to be praying for this project and for those leading it, and a visit will help to inform our prayers.
3.Insight: we would love to hear from you after you’ve visited. What is important to you about this project? What is God saying to you prophetically? Do you have any wisdom to impart to the team? (“Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed” – Proverbs 15v22)
4. Inspiration: we would love people to get inspired for what we’re doing together. Let’s get inspired about our social action, inspired about our kids work and inspired about our youth work. Perhaps God may even have a role for you to play that you don’t yet know about!
Gift Days
Lastly, let me please remind you that we have our next two Gift Days for Church Gate scheduled for Sunday 30th June and Sunday 7th July.
Our goal is two raise at least £2m over 2 years. We’re well on the way towards that target (£1.3m pledged/given so far) but let’s all be praying about what God is calling us to give this time round. We don’t want anyone to give more than God is calling them to, but we don’t want anyone to give less than He’s asking them to either.
Let’s all get involved in this Church Gate adventure that God is leading us into as a church.
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We have a lot to be thankful to God for as a church right now! I want to highlight two things in particular: our Gift Days and our Carol Services.
1. Gift Days
Over three Sundays in November we held Gift Days towards buying Church Gate, the three storey building next door to us (click here for info).
Church Gate will be key to the work we want to do to serve the poor, including starting a community grocery to bridge the gap between the FoodBank and a supermarket for the most needy in our town. It will also provide extra space we need for our children’s work and youth work, which are both essential ingredients for our church’s future.
The owners of Church Gate agreed to sell it to us for £3m, which is a fair price. I’ve discussed the size of the financial challenge in a previous blog post (click here), but in summary we plan to buy Church Gate with a mixture of both cash and a mortgage. We needed to raise the first £1m as soon as possible – ideally in this first set of Gift Days.
It’s worth bearing in mind that we faced a BIG challenge going into these Gift Days:
We only had 5 weeks notice before the first Gift Sunday
The UK is in a cost of living crisis
Our town has been declared ‘bankrupt’ (section 114 notice)
We are in the run up to Christmas
As a church, we already gave sacrificially in 2019 to build our current building.
We knew we were up against a big challenge!
The result
After the three Sundays, adding together the money received, some outstanding pledges and the gift aid on that giving, together we have given just over …
… £1.25 million!
That’s an incredible result and one we should celebrate. We have so much to be thankful to God for in the way this has come together.
On behalf of the whole team I want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who’s given sacrificially to make this happen. It’s a joy to be a part of such a generous church.
It’s still not too late to give to these Gift Days, remembering that it’s not the amount that matters, but the heart of worship it’s given with. If you want to do that you can visit our giving page by clicking here.
2. Carol Services
This Sunday, 10th December, we are holding our “Carol Service For Woking” at 2pm, 4.30pm and 7pm (NB: there are no morning meetings that day!)
More than 1900 people have now booked to attend on Sunday, and those numbers are growing every day. That figure doesn’t include the many people who are serving in various ways at each service and who don’t need a seat.
It’s still not too late to book a seat for yourself and your friends, and you can do that by using this link. Remember, this is the easiest church invitation you get to make all year; people love to come and sing Christmas carols.
Please do pray for this Sunday’s Carol Services. We want to see many people encounter Jesus and start their journey towards a relationship with Him. Your prayers really do matter!
I look forward to seeing you on Sunday but, if you’re ill or housebound, or you live too far away and just can’t make it to a service in person, the 7pm Carol Service will also be live streamed at welcomechurch.online. I hope you can join us.
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This coming Sunday (26th Nov) will be the last of our three Welcome Church Gift Sundays for buying Church Gate (click here for more info). We’ve made great progress with our giving for this so far, but we do have a bit further to go to hit our target. I’m looking forward to Sunday 🙂
‘All In’
These Gift Days are an ‘All In’ moment for our church. We’d love everyone who’s part of Welcome Church to participate in proportion to their faith and their ability. Because of this, at the end of the meeting this week our Kids and Youth will be joining us for the ‘giving moment’. We’ll get to worship God together and to give as we do that, thanking Him for all He provides for us.
As a team we’ve felt from the start that giving towards Church Gate should be a ‘church family’ moment. Our goal has been for everyone to participate in some way, including our children and young people. That moment will come on Sunday morning, and parents will have an opportunity to enable their kids or youth to come to the front and joyously give to this project.
We wanted parents to know about this in advance for two key reasons:
1) Because this is a great discipleship opportunity
Gift Days don’t come around very often, and buying a building comes along perhaps once in a generation. We want all our young people to be able to say they participated in buying Church Gate, and that they gave to God from their hearts, regardless of the amount.
As they participate, our children and young people will learn about the practice of giving to God, and, even more importantly, they will learn about God’s provision for us – that he gives us what we need and is a generous Father. The world will teach our kids that money should be held onto, that it will bring us security and happiness, but Jesus came to free us from slavery to money, and release us into the cheerful generosity that characterises our Heavenly Father.
We believe this will be as good an opportunity as we ever get to teach our kids about how we can worship God through our generosity. Given that children tend to learn more by what we do than by what we say, let’s not miss this moment; let’s enable our children and young people to participate in what God is doing though us as a church. Whether we have kids or not, let’s all model something together as a family as we step out in faith together.
2) So you can be ready to help your children join in
If you’re a parent we would encourage you to plan a moment during this week where you talk about Church Gate to your kids and ask them to think and pray about what God would like them to give. These conversations can be so encouraging, especially as children are so often much quicker to get excited about giving than we are.
You’ll probably need to remind them (and yourself!) to bring their money on Sunday, or if you’d prefer, you can give them some of your own money to put in, enabling them to participate in the offering that way. Doing that is actually a great picture of how God enables us to give, by providing us with all that we have. You may also need to actually get some cash out for them – so much of our spending these day is done through contactless payments that we rarely have cash in the house!
Remember: don’t worry about the amount. We talked last week about the widow who gave two small coins (see Mark 12v41-44). In Jesus’ Kingdom, it’s not about the amount, it’s about developing a generous heart that loves Jesus. Whatever your kids sincerely give will be lovingly and joyfully received by Jesus; He loves a cheerful giver, no matter their age!
A last thought
The Bible teaches parents to “bring (children) up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Eph 6v4), and to “Start children off in the way they should go” (Proverbs 22v6). This Sunday is a great opportunity for some family discipleship, so go for it parents, and let’s go for it as a whole church family together too. See you on Sunday!
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This Sunday (12th Nov) is a big one for Welcome Church for two reasons:
1. It’s a Gift Day
This will be the first of three Gift Sundays for us to buy Church Gate (the building next door to us). You can find out more about why we want to buy Church Gate by clicking here, and the details of what it will cost by clicking here.
This week I was at “Commission Prayer and Fasting”, an event that pretty much does what it says on the tin: we get together as teams from our UK churches to seek God and pray. At the event I was lovingly ‘pounced on’ by a leader from another church who felt God wanted him to share something with me:
“I see a brick wall in front of you, filling your vision. God says not to worry about it. He’ll get you past the wall. He has it all in hand …”
I always find these sorts of moments encouraging, but this one really made me smile because here’s the view from my office window, a view of Church Gate:
“I see a brick wall in front of you”
Ahead of Sunday please be praying about what God is calling you to give personally. We have a big challenge in front of us, but we have an even bigger God who is our provider. Let’s be in faith for what He will do through us over the next three weeks as obstacle after obstacle is cleared out of the way.
“Lift up your heads, you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is he, this King of glory? The Lord Almighty – he is the King of glory” (Psalm 24v9-10)
2. On Sunday we have our next Encounter Evening
We’ve done several of these now, but this one is a bit different; it’s a big one! On the evening we will be served by a guest band from Kings Church Epsom. Jo and Meg recently spoke at a women’s conference at Kings Church. They were really impressed by the whole worship experience, and wanted us to experience it too.
Kings Church is unusual amongst our Commission family at the moment: it’s our only majority black church in the UK so far.They have a different style of worship than we’re used to, and I know we’re going to be blessed. Please come ready and expectant to encounter God, and please feel free to invite people from other churches to join us too, or anyone else you think will be blessed.
All welcome. Come as you are!
A Big Goodbye ☹️
This week we also said a sad goodbye to Kimberley and Luqman who fly back to India tomorrow (Friday 10th). They have been a real gift to us this year and we will miss them a lot.
The office team had a shared lunch with them on their last day with us (and 1 or 2 others popped in to join us too). We took time on the day to talk about what we love and appreciate about them both, and to share some memories and pray for them. There were tears, but I think that this mix of joy and sadness is all part of being part of the family of God.
I had my final goodbye with them both in the office today (Thursday). They even returned some of my missing books 😃. Do pray for them as they head home, not least because, at the last check, their luggage was 13kg overweight …
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Here are some things we would love you to be praying about this month:
Gift Sundays
Our Gift Days to raise the finance we need for Church Gate are on Sundays 12th, 19th and 26th November. We would love everyone to be praying for this – for God to supply all we need as a church, and for Him to speak to each of us personally about what He is calling us to give.
A booklet is available with all the info you need to know, so do pick one up on Sunday morning or get in touch with the office to ask for a copy. It will tell you WHAT we are doing, WHY we are doing it, why we are doing it NOW(which is key to the whole thing), HOW MUCH it will cost and what we are asking YOU to do.
Baptisms
This Sunday we have baptisms at both morning meetings. Please pray for all those getting baptised.
There is a special need for prayer for 2 of those being baptised at 9am. They have come to us from a nation where to convert to Christianity could cost them their liberty and perhaps their life. Both came to faith in their own country. Both are fleeing persecution.
For this reason these two baptisms and testimonies, will not be live-streamed – we will switch the live-stream off at this point. We are also asking that no photos are taken or posted anywhere. The testimonies are well worth hearing, but you will have to be there in person at the 9am meeting to hear them.
If you are planning to be at the 11am meeting that day there might be room for some to stand at the back from about 10.15am if you want to arrive early and catch this part of the 9am meeting.
CST
CST is the “Commission Students to Thirties” event taking place on Saturday Nov 18th at Hope Church, Winchester. This year the theme of CST is about being ‘All In for Jesus‘. There will be great worship, great talks, time to connect with God and some good food too.
I would appreciate your prayers because I’m preaching the opening message at CST this year. Please pray that it connects well with people and helps to grow and stretch their faith.
If anyone isn’t booked in to CST and wants to know more, then do follow this link here for more information and a link to the booking page.
Luqman and Kimberley
Luqman and Kimberley, our two leadership trainees from India, finish their year with us next week, and will then head home to Goa. They are going to be greatly missed and will leave a hole in both our Office Team and our hearts ☹️. They have been a joy to have around and we’re sad to see them go.
Please pray for them as they return to India, that God will direct their steps into whatever He has next for them, and please do give them big hugs and lots of appreciation this weekend. Sunday 5th November will be their last Sunday with us.
Carol Services
Bookings for our Carol Services open this weekend. They will be held on Sunday 10th December this year, at 2pm, 4.30pm and 7pm. On Sunday we will give out all the information you need, and I’ll post it in my blog too, but please do be praying already about who you could be inviting and for all the preparations to go well. Please also pray for lots of people to sign up to attend.
A few other bits for prayer
In case that lot’s not enough to keep you busy praying, here are a few more things:
Reuben and Lucy get married this Saturday: pray for them as they start married life together
I’m leading the Commission ‘TLM’ training day on Saturday 11th Nov: the topic is ‘Grace for Ministry’
Our Alpha Course have their ‘Holy Spirit Day’ on Sat 25th Nov: pray for people to encounter the Holy Spirit and give their lives to Jesus
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Last week I blogged about Church Gate, the next big adventure we believe God has for us as a church (click here to read about it).
This is a big deal for us and, of course, we wouldn’t be doing it if we didn’t think it was ‘mission critical’ for our calling as a church together:
Church Gate will be key for the work we want to do to serve the poor, including our desire to start a community grocery to bridge the gap between the FoodBank and a supermarket for the most needy in our town
Church Gate will provide the facilities and space we need to disciple our children and young people well. Remember, we are not baby sitting them week by week; we are equipping them to be the men and women of God He is calling them to be, so they can lead the way into the future in all areas of life and follow His call on their life.
Church Gate will also provide lots of space for our meetings and ministries all week long, and even has a few extra parking spaces, which is always handy to have.
Gift Days
Obviously we need to pay for Church Gate! As I said last week, we’ll be looking at mortgages, but we also all need to do our part individually so, in November, we will be holding some gift Sundays. I want to fill in a few details on that.
We will hold our gift Sundays over three weeks, on Sundays 12th, 19th and 26th of November. In case you’ve not been at Welcome Church when we’ve done this before (and the last time was a few years ago) it will be a normal Sunday meeting – with worship, kids work, teaching etc – but there’ll be a chance at the end of the morning to come forward and give, or pledge to give, to this big adventure. With that in mind we recognise that more information needs to be shared.
Next Sunday, and in the weeks to come, we’ll be giving out a printed booklet with all the information you need. It will explain:
WHAT we are doing
WHY we are doing it
Why we are doing it NOW(very important!)
HOW MUCH it will cost and
What we are asking YOU to do
The size of the financial challenge
People have been asking what Church Gate will cost, so here are the details:
The owners have agreed to sell Church Gate to us for three million pounds.
That may sound like a lot of money (and in many ways it is) but it’s a price our professional valuer agrees is fair for us to pay, and a lot less than where we started from. We also have to budget for additional fees and refurbishment costs, so the total cost for the project is likely be in the region of £3.5 million pounds – hopefully a bit less.
We anticipate that some of this cost will be funded through our existing savings as a church, and through a new mortgage. We’re also in faith to raise £2 million pounds over the next two years through our sacrificial giving as a church to this adventure.
The big challenge is that we need to raise the first £1 million in the next few months, in order to complete on Church Gate in early 2024, so we need to step out in big faith this November.
Time is tighter than we’d like for this project, but the opportunity really is now or never. The sellers of Church Gate have received Planning Permission to redevelop the site into flats. Were they to go ahead, the opportunity will be closed to us for good, so we need to go for it in faith now to invest in our future as a church.
What can I do today?
At this point we would ask you to do one thing: please pray. Pray that the sale moves ahead smoothly. Pray that finance comes together quickly.
Mainly though, please pray for God to speak to YOU about what he wants YOU to give.
We wouldn’t want anyone to give more than God is asking them to give, but we wouldn’t want anyone to give less than He is asking them to give either!
And remember: it’s not that we HAVE to give; it’s that we GET to give. It’s a privilege to invest in the Kingdom of God, knowing that we cannot out-give God.
Between us we have a significant amount of money to raise, but I believe we can do this as we step out in faith, so let’s go for it together. I’ll share more info in the weeks ahead.
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Over the last few months we’ve prayed several times about Church Gate, which is the building next door to ours. I believe this is now our next big adventure as a church!
The Story So Far
In January 2020 we opened our brand new Chapel building and, at the same time, we redeveloped our old Church building(often now referred to as ‘the front building’) to serve our various ministries, including our children’s and youth work, and to provide new offices, kitchens and more.
Unforeseen Challenges
Coming out of the pandemic, Welcome Church has grown significantly – much faster than any of us anticipated. One unforeseen problem this has caused is that, as a church with many families in it, the number of children and youth who attend each Sunday are more than the front building can accommodate.
At the moment Welcome Kids Seniors and Welcome Youth cross the road each Sunday morning to meet in ‘The Cube’ (above Useful Wood). This is a good solution for now, but we do not own that space and in time it will be redeveloped for housing.
Alongside our growth in numbers, we also have a growing focus on social action in response to Jesus’ call on us to be “good news to the poor”. One ministry we would like to start is a community grocery, bridging the gap between the food bank and a supermarket for the poorest families in our town. For many this could be a lifeline and a great way for people to connect with our church and with Jesus.
In conversation with Woking Borough Council we’ve looked at various premises in Woking, but nothing has yet been found that provides the space we need, in a venue that works for us in terms of accessibility, cost and location.
The Church Gate Solution
Church Gate, a three storey open plan office building, is next door to us, and has been empty for more than 6 years. The owners have recently received planning permission to add two extra stories to it and to develop it as residential accommodation, but we decided to contact them anyway, and they agreed to meet with us and let us look around the building.
On viewing Church Gate it quickly became apparent that it could meet our needs as a church. It could provide us with:
Space to serve our children’s and youth work
Space for a community grocery and for other social action projects in the future
More space for meetings and ministries all week long – both for us as a church and as a facility to serve our town
A few more parking spaces (always handy to have!)
In short, we believe Church Gate offers the right space for our needs, so with this in mind we shared with the owners our heart and our vision to serve the community and do good for our town. We asked them not to develop it into flats but to sell it to us instead, and they agreed to come back to us with a price.
Negotiations
Negotiations started off with a gap of several million pounds but, following a professional valuation, lots of discussion and a whole lot of prayer, last week we were able to agree on a fair price in line with the valuation, so …
… WE ARE GOING TO BUY CHURCH GATE
What’s next?
In November we will hold Gift Days as a church, and we’ll all have a chance to give financially to this exciting new adventure. Next week I’ll share more information about that.
We recognise we’re on a short time scale, but we’re also aware that this is a unique opportunity and we need to respond to it in a timely way, whilst the door is open.
These Gift Days are our big opportunity to step up and give sacrificially. Let’s give as an act of worship. Let’s give to build a better future. Let’s give to take part in what God is doing with our church at this time.
Our giving to this adventure is a chance to invest in our church, our children, our youth, the gospel, our work among the poor in our town, and the Kingdom of God, and let’s not forget it’s also an investment in our future together. Generations of this church before us have given sacrificially to get us to where we are today; now it’s our turn to step out in faith and to sow financially into the future.
In the weeks ahead I’ll share more information about the price we’ve agreed, and about what we now need to do – and there are lots of practical steps we will need to take – but at this point we only want to ask you to do one thing: to pray.
Pleasepray that the sale moves ahead smoothly and that the finance comes together quickly. And please pray for God to speak to YOU about what he wants YOU to give. Between us we have a significant amount of money to raise, but I believe we can do this together.
Listening to God
During the negotiations, looking at Church Gate out of my office window and praying and dreaming about what God might do, I felt God remind me of a parable Jesus told:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” (Matthew 13v45-46)
That parable is not really about buildings, but I felt a whisper in my heart that, to us, Church Gate would be like that pearl of great value. I believe this is a great opportunity that God has put in front of us, and that we need to be prepared to sacrifice to get in on this adventure; it will be costly but it’s worth it, so lets go for it together. More information will follow in the weeks ahead.
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