Some Items For Prayer – July 2024

July 11, 2024 / Steve Petch / Leave a comment

We would love you all to be praying for our church in the weeks ahead. Here are a few key items to pray for this summer:

Church Gate

The Gift Sundays have been great and it was wonderful to celebrate together in worship last week as we drew them to a close. It was a joy to see so many people taking part: people of all ages, and from so many of the different nationalities that make up our church; people who’ve been with us for many years and others who have just arrived. I loved it!

This Sunday we’ll announce the Gift Day results and, without saying too much, they are excellent once again. Don’t forget that it’s not too late to add your gift if you haven’t given yet – you can do that here. Why not step out in faith?

Please pray:

For great results from our Gift Days and for all the finance we need to deliver this project well to be released
For wisdom and insight during our meetings with the architect as he draws up the plans and helps to bring life and vision to the eventual layout of Church Gate, both inside and out. We’re working with the same company who designed the chapel – Plan A UK – and we’re excited to work with them once again.
For the grocery team as they look at the various requirements to fully deliver the Community Grocery and the new Welcome Cafe. There is a lot to consider, including legal issues, charity issues, finance issues and more, including some grant applications that we would love to come through

Welcome Youth

Welcome Youth will be off to the New Day Festival on July 29th, and this year they are taking around 90 young people with them. This is always a great event where our youth can connect with God and grow in their faith.

Please Pray:

For our youth team: they will be working very hard and usually come back both encouraged and exhausted
For the serving teams: they will be cooking food and helping with various practical issues to help free up the youth team to lead well
For the youth: that they meet with God and find a fresh sense of calling and that they grow in their identity in Christ
For the event itself: they have great speakers lined up this year and the worship is always high quality, but there’s lots more at Newday besides the main meetings. Please pray for the whole event to be safe, for the sun to shine and for the young people to meet with Jesus

Commission Festival

We’ll be off to the Commission Festival as a church over the bank Holiday weekend at the end of August (so no Sunday meetings at Welcome Church on August 25th!) If you haven’t booked in yet it’s not too late and you can do that here. Day tickets will also be available so do check them out if you can’t make the whole thing.

We’re taking a big group from Welcome Church again this year, and we’ll be camping together, eating together (food provided) and no doubt having a lot of fun in our marquee in the evenings (please bring ear plugs if like to go to bed early 🙂)

Please Pray

For Dub: he’s running a stream of seminars this year and will be speaking twice, with Christopher covering one of the slots too
For Jo: not only does she lead our worship team here, she’s leading the worship for the whole event. Reuben, Owen, Sophie and Paul from our team are also involved in worship this year, alongside people from various other Commission churches
For me: I’ll be anchoring all of the main meetings which is all about getting the right people in the right place at the right time and making sure they know what they are doing and stick to the programme! It’s an ‘invisible job’ so you won’t see me. If I get it right no one will notice anything I do; if I get wrong everyone will!
For Darren: he’s helping to organise the whole Festival, supporting Tom who is the Ops Manager for Commission. It’s a big responsibility and another invisible job.
For our team of chefs who are sorting out the food (too many names to mention)
For the weather: sunshine please
For each of us to encounter Jesus and grow in our faith
For our church to grow deeper in love and friendship with one another
For our children and young people to encounter Jesus
For all who are serving in various ways (another list too long to mention)
For the whole event to be fun, safe and successful

Thanks

Thanks in advance for your prayers. Don’t forget that Welcome Church is meeting every Sunday across the summer at 9am and 11am, except for the 25th August. This Sunday we’ll be back to our series on Exodus. Christopher is speaking and I’m looking forward to it.

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Some Welcome Church Updates – May 2024

May 17, 2024May 17, 2024 / Steve Petch / Leave a comment

The following are a few updates about life at Welcome Church:

Church Gate

I’m please to announce that this afternoon – Friday May 17th – we have completed on our purchase of Church Gate (for details about Church Gate please click here!) We are now the owners of this building. The real work now begins to make it useable!

Please do book a slot to visit Church Gate during one of our upcoming Open Days – (to do that please click here). Places are going fast so don’t delay. Visits will be by guided tour only at this stage and you will need to book to attend – don’t miss out.

We’ll give out more information on Church Gate on Sunday mornings in the weeks ahead, so do be there to find out more.

Compassion

We had a great Sunday with Tim Robertson from Compassion UK last week and it was good to find out about the impact that our sponsorship of children in Togo has been having. (I know that some also sponsor children in other countries – that’s great too). Tim preached brilliantly so do listen to the download if you missed it.

On Sunday another 42 children were sponsored between us, and it’s not too late to join in. If you want to know more please do get in touch with the church office. You can find out more about our connection with Togo by following this link.

I’ve also attached some of the slides we showed on Sunday, including one with pictures of all the children we sponsor – see if you can spot yours. Please don’t forget about the importance of writing letters too.

Dr Amy Orr-Ewing – speaking this Sunday

We have a great guest speaker this Sunday: Dr Amy Orr-Ewing.

Amy is passionate about Christian apologetics – presenting and defending the Christian faith in a way that engages with culture. Over the last twenty years, Amy has given talks and answered hundreds of questions on university campuses around the world. She has also addressed Parliamentarians in the Speakers Rooms and Chapel at the UK Parliament, and staffers on Capitol Hill and at the West Wing of the White House. You find out more about Amy by clicking here.

This Sunday she will be speaking about “Where is God in all the suffering?” This is a great chance to invite friends to join you at church. Let’s be on the front foot to invite people.

Faith At Work – a new learn group

Both Freedom In Christ and The Bible Course are up and running now, and I know people are enjoying them. We have one more ‘Learn Group’ starting this term: the Faith At Work course. This is a new course and it’s for anyone who’s working. It doesn’t matter what your job is, if you are at work then this is for you.

Faith at Work you will be filled with hope and faith for God’s purposes in your workplace. It’ll include really practical teaching and reflection in small groups, on subjects such as: Our work is God’s work, How can I make a difference? How can I share my faith at work? and Work/Life balance.

It’s taking place over 3 consecutive Monday evenings – the 10th, 17th and 24th June – from 7:30-9:30pm – and there will be a follow up meal on 15th July to celebrate what God has been doing at our places of work!

For more details or to book a place please click here

Stay up to date with what’s happening at Welcome Church by subscribing to this blog to get it straight to your inbox each week.

A Day To Remember

January 8, 2020January 9, 2020 / Steve Petch / Leave a comment

We had our first Sunday meetings in our new Welcome Church building in the heart of Woking this week, and what a great day it was!

Around 750 people attended across the two morning meetings, and some of the highlights for me included:

The sense of joy and excitement after so long waiting for a new building
Seeing so many people from our church gathered across the two meetings
The excellent coffee and refreshments (thank you Marcus, Sharon and team)
The top notch parking arrangements that came together and worked so well (thank you Richard and team)
Embarrassing the awesome Mike Deavin by getting him to sit on the stage in an armchair with a blanket whilst I preached (thank you Mike)
The amazing worship times … our musicians and sound team were absolutely ON IT! (Thank you team)

I also enjoyed gathering in the evening to pray around the whole site.

An extra special thank you goes to Charles C for the huge amount of time he put in to make sure that everything worked in terms of sound, lights and visuals.