giving

Four Amazing Job Opportunities At Welcome Church

/ Steve Petch / 1 Comment

In June and July, I preached a series at Welcome Church called “The Generous Life”. Together we explored how we can steward our finances with faith, grow in generosity, and reflect the generosity God has shown to us.

During that series, we shared that although our church has doubled in size over the last five years, our staff team had actually shrunk—a significant challenge for a growing church.

We asked you to step out in faith with your giving, and you did. The number of people giving regularly has grown by 27%, and for us that is a game changer.

Please remember: Welcome Church is a charity. Everything we do—both for those who are part of our church and for those who are not—is funded by your generosity. There’s nowhere better to invest your money than into God’s church!

A Huge “Thank You”

Some of you…

  • Increased your giving – thank you
  • Are new and jumped straight into giving – thank you
  • Moved from giving occasionally to giving regularly – thank you

Between April and October this year, our giving increased by 18% compared to the same period last year. Praise God for His provision, and thank you for standing with us in faith.

Because of your generosity, we are now able to move ahead with expanding our staff team, and are delighted to announce four new employed roles:

1. Operations Manager — 3 days per week

This key role supports the full range of our operational activities, with overall responsibility for the management and support of all food-related ministries—especially our Community Grocery and our kitchens.

Closing date: 4th January 2026

2. Finance Manager — 3 days per week

This role ensures the accurate, transparent, and compliant management of our finances. You’ll help our leadership steward our resources wisely, meet charity regulations, and provide clear reporting to the Senior Leadership Team and Trustees.

Closing date: 4th January 2026

3. Children’s Ministry Lead— 3 days per week

This role leads our Children’s Ministry across all age groups from birth to Year 6. We’re looking for someone who can shape excellent children’s ministry, build strong teams, create safe and welcoming environments, and help our children to encounter Jesus, grow in their faith, and feel at home in church. This is a role for a leader of leaders.

Closing date: 5th December 2026 (Please note the earlier date)

Youth and Young Adults Pastor — Full Time

This role carries responsibility for the leadership and discipleship of our youth and our fast-growing 18–30s community. We’re looking for a strong, dynamic leader to help shape how we engage, pastor, and disciple the next generation. This will be a significant leadership role for our church.

Closing date: 4th January 2026

How do I apply?

Please click this link for full details on each role and how to apply. You’re also welcome to get in touch for an informal chat, or to come and visit the church if you’d like to find out more.

A Few Encouragements for Those in Welcome Church

There are four things I’d love us all to do:

1. Continue stepping out in faith in your giving
Your generosity makes all of this possible.

2. Share these opportunities
Spread the word to anyone you think would be a great fit, and share the roles on your social media.

3. If you apply, hold it lightly
There may be many applicants but only one position for each role. If you’re not successful, please don’t allow that to affect how you feel about your church or cause you to withdraw.

4. Pray with us
Ask God to bring the right people into each of these roles.

Stay connected with everything happening at Welcome Church by subscribing to this blog for weekly updates sent straight to your inbox

        This Sunday: Preparing for our last Gift Day

        / Steve Petch / Leave a comment

        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!

        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.

        Our New ‘Giving Points’

        / Steve Petch / Leave a comment

        This Sunday (19th Nov) will be the second of three Gift Sundays towards buying Church Gate (for more information about that please click here).

        Some people have asked how the giving went on week 1 … but no one should see a job half done (or 1/3 done as it is in this case!) We’ll give the full results on Sunday Dec 3rd. At this stage I’ll just say this: we made a great start, and we still have a way to go, so let’s step out in faith together. I’m looking forward to Sunday 🙂

        Giving Points

        Aside from the Gift Days, as a church we are funded only by people’s generous giving (plus a small amount of building rental income). We don’t get money from a ‘Head Office’ or from anywhere else. As a charity, all that we do as a church, all that we do for our town and all that we give away comes from what people give.

        In the past, like most churches, we used to pass an ‘offering basket’ on a Sunday morning, and people would give as part of their worship. We stopped doing that when Covid began (we had to!) and we never started again. The reason for not re-starting came down to a significant cultural change: almost all of the giving had moved online.

        Well before Covid struck we’d already reached a point where passing the basket had become slightly embarrassing! Person after person passed the basket on, but put nothing into it because they’d already given online by standing order. People were giving very faithfully, but it didn’t look wonderful, especially to guests!

        With this in mind, we’re not going to start passing the baskets again in the foreseeable future, but we do want to make giving as easy as possible for all who want to take part. We recognise that not everyone is able to give online, and that some people simply prefer to give by cash or by cheque, and that’s 100% fine. Our goal is to make giving as accessible as possible for everyone, and let’s not forget that regular giving is part of our worship as Christians. To help with this …

        We have installed three giving points

        The giving points can be found next to each of the ‘pads’ that are used for the church car park: two are in The Chapel and one is in the front building. Here’s a photo of each of them, with a close up of the one by the rear Car Park doors. If you Zoom in close on one of them you’ll see Deano in the background pretending to do some work:

        In The Chapel by the Welcome Lounge
        In The Chapel by the rear car park doors
        A close up
        In the front building – see if you can spot Deano

        Each giving point has three parts to it:

        • A small, electronic giving pad that you can use to give by card and by phone. If the screen is blank just push the little button on to top get it started
        • A sign with instructions for using the giving pad. It’s very easy and you can even add your name and details so we can claim Gift Aid if appropriate
        • A black metal ‘post box’ where you can post cash or cheques or envelopes – these are emptied regularly!

        Whilst it’s a bit easier for us administratively when people give online, however you choose to give and whatever the size of your gift, we hugely appreciate it. Let’s all just go for it in faith in whatever way works best for us.

        On behalf of the whole team, let me say a big THANK YOU for all your faithful giving.

        2 Corinthians 9v6-7 says:

        Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

        Why does God love a cheerful giver? Because God is a cheerful giver!

        He is a generous and compassionate Father, and He promises to provide for us as His children. He has given us all we need for life and godliness. It’s impossible for us to out-give Him, so let’s give faithfully, as part of our worship, trusting Him to meet all of our needs.

        If you have any questions about using a Giving Point, please just ask us, we’ll be happy to help, and if you want to find out about giving online then please just follow this link. Thanks!

        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.

        New Initiative: Welcome Church Goes Around The World

        / Steve Petch / 3 Comments

        At Welcome Church, we love people and want to respond to Jesus’ call to support and help others, even at this difficult time.

        During the Coronavirus Lockdown, incidences of Domestic Violence have risen.  At the same time charitable giving has fallen. Domestic violence destroys lives and families, and we want to do something to make a difference, so we are going to raise money for Your Sanctuary, a Woking based charity who help victims of domestic violence and their families. It’s a real privilege to get alongside them and raise money for the amazing work they do.

        We have an ambitious plan

        Let’s use our daily exercise over the next the next 6 weeks to see if we can go far enough to have circled the globe together – a distance of 24, 901 miles – and let’s do it to raise £24,901 for this amazing cause.

        We want everyone who is part of Welcome Church to join together to do two things:

        First, let’s measure and log our daily exercise distance each day

        Walking,  running, cycling, roller skating, scooting or an exercise machine – however you do it – measure your distance each day and maybe take a picture of yourself doing it. Add up every member of your household, and then send it in each day, with any pictures you may have, to aroundtheworld@allwelcome.uk

        exercise-female-fitness-foot-601177

        This data will get added together, and over 6 weeks we’re aiming to cover a distance that would have taken us right around the world. Everyone’s exercise counts, from the youngest to the oldest, from the longest to the shortest distance. This is a team effort where our church community, together within anyone else who wants to get involved, can combine together to complete this challenge.

        Second, let’s invite the people we know to sponsor us as a church for doing it, to raise money for Your Sanctuary:

        Let’s get as many people as possible to support us with this, giving anything from £1 upwards. Any amount, however small or large, will be appreciated.

        People can be invited to give through our Go Fund me page, and don’t forget to share it to social media as well. Invite your friends, family, neighbours and colleagues to sponsor us all, and let’s raise some money!

        In the weeks ahead people will be able to follow our progress around the globe and see updates and photos of people completing their daily exercise on our Facebook Page  or Instagram

        A target to go for

        We’ve set a target to raise £24,901. This amounts to £1 per mile and, although we are not asking people to sponsor us ‘per mile’, it’s great to have something to aim for … and let’s all give generously ourselves too.

        Whether we achieve the financial target or not, any amount raised will be amazing, and we can have some fun doing it

        Saving Lives, Helping The Poor

        / Steve Petch / 3 Comments

        On Sundays June 9th and 16th we will be having the final Gift Days for our New Building Project. We are going to give away a tithe (10%) of what we collect to a project working with the poorest of the poor … and the good news is that every gift we give to them on this occasion can be doubled!

        Child Survival

        As a church we are already sponsoring many children in Togo through Compassion UK, and it’s a country with a lot of needs. One of the big challenges is around infant mortality and health in pregnancy.

        At present in Togo:

        • 1 in 20 babies die before their first birthday … and most of these are from preventable causes
        • 1 in 58 women also die

        These are shocking statistics, and Compassion are working to change this though their Child Survival Projects (CSP). These CSP’s are run by local churches in Togo. They work with mothers throughout their pregnancy and for the first year of the child’s life to provide:

        • Medical support
        • Vaccinations
        • Basic provisions – including safe water, hygiene kits and nutritious food
        • Education – on how to care for a child – remembering that many of the mothers are little more than children themselves
        • Skills training – to teach work skills that can help them earn a living
        • Spiritual support and mentoring

        These projects are so important that for a short while they are receiving matched funding from our UK Government.

        Our donations to this vital work (before Gift Aid) will be matched, pound for pound, by the UK government

        So what we give to them will be doubled

        This means that if we hit our target of £300,000, and we pass £30,000 on to Compassion, it will be doubled to £60,000 – enough to fund a project for several years.

        Jesus told us that he was sent to bring good news to the poor. Let’s join him in that mission as we come to our Gift Days.

        If you have any questions, please do ask.