I shared in a blog at the start of this year that we would be looking for new some new, employed members of the Welcome Church team this year, and we’re excited to say thatour new Pastoral Lead is the first role we’re looking to fill.
We need to increase our ability and capacity to respond to the more urgent and immediate pastoral needs of the church, and we also need to prepare to support the increasing pastoral needs that will come both with further growth, and through our Welcome Works ministries, such as the upcoming community grocery.
Who are we looking for?
We’re looking for someone who can lead the planning and the practical delivery of pastoral care across the church. They will also bring leadership to our small group ministries – our ‘LifeGroups’ and ‘LearnGroups’. These small groups will become increasingly important for maintaining our family culture and ethos, as we become a larger church and are key to pastoral care too.
The right person will be someone who does some of the ‘doing’ – such as responding to urgent pastoral needs – but we’re also particularly looking for someone who can enable and support the skilled and dedicated leaders we already have operating in these areas; we are looking for a leader of leaders who’s able to think strategically about how we care well for those who God brings into our family, and who can build teams and work through others.
This is a key role in our church and a senior one.
We’ll be searching for the right person through a number of avenues, and one of those is through this blog. If you’re interested to know more, we’ve developed a job specification and details of how to apply which you can access via this link. Please don’t be shy in coming forward if you feel something stirring in your heart and think this may be something you’d like to explore further, and please don’t hesitate to get in touch for a confidential chat – we’d love to hear from you.
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I know it’s a bit late to say it, but this is my first Welcome Church blog post of 2025! Thanks for reading this far 🙂
We had a great Christmas and New Year season at Welcome Church. I talked about our Carol Services in a previous post, and this year we also introduced a Watchnight Celebration as a brand new event on New Year’s Eve. It was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to next year already. Put it in your diary now!
New Year’s Eve at Welcome Church
Staff Team Updates
We have some important changes happening within our church staff team this year.
As the church grows, so do the demands on our team, and we’ve certainly felt the strain of being understaffed in 2024. If you haven’t worked for a church I know it’s hard to imagine what people do all day, but believe me: we are incredibly busy.
For clarity, Welcome Church has more than doubled in size since I arrived 7 years ago, but the employed team is smaller now than it was back then. Everyone is running flat out, and we’ve only survived thanks to some very kind and committed office volunteers who we appreciate so much.
I’d like to share four updates:
First: Jonathan and Sabrina – Leadership Trainees
Jonathan and Sabrina’s time with us will come to an end in June this year, giving us roughly five more months to enjoy and appreciate their contribution. They’re currently praying about their next steps, which are complicated by some VISA challenges. Let’s support them in prayer as they seek God’s will for the future.
Second: Dean – Pastoral Care
Dean, one of our elders, has been working full-time on staff for more than 10 years now. Starting from January 20th, he’ll reduce his hours to three days a week, returning to his passion for architecture on the other two days. In time, he may step out of his staff role entirely. This creates a gap in pastoral care that we’ll need to address.
These first two changes further stretch an already understaffed team. Recruitment will be essential this year, and details on that will follow at the right time. Watch this space 😮
Third: Organisational Leadership
To help the church thrive into the future, we need to strengthen our organisational leadership, which is all about how we steward and align all of our resources to fulfil our vision effectively. This will require some big-picture thinking and also some adjustments to some of our policies, procedures, and ways of working.
To address this, after discussions with the Eldership Team and Trustees, I’ve invited Robin W to step into a new role on an interim basis. Starting immediately, Robin will work two days a week over the next year, focusing on reshaping our organisational leadership. His work will also help us define the future shape of the staff team and help to refine how we operate as a growing church. Part of Robin’s success will be that he replaces himself at the right time and steps back out of the role.
This is an unexpected but exciting step for Robin, and he feels God has been leading him to this role for a while now. I’m eager to make the most of this opportunity to prepare us for the future. It also means he’s stepping back from being a Trustee for the next season. In a business this role might get called Chief Administrative Office, but as a church we’re giving it the title ‘Executive Pastor’ – which leads into the fourth update…
Fourth: Christopher Hawes – New Job Title
Christopher has held the title Executive Pastor for a couple of years, although his role was very different from the one Robin will be taking on and we used the title in a completely different way. To better reflect his actual responsibilities, Christopher’s new job title will now be Teaching Pastor. While his job role remains unchanged, we feel this title better captures his primary focus, and he’s fully supportive of the change.
More changes to come
These are the first four changes for 2025, and several more will follow as we seek to grow and strengthen the staff team. Let’s all show our love and support to each of these individuals as they step into what God has both for them and for our church in this new season.
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As a church, for over 15 years now, we’ve had a team going into Coldingley Men’s Prison. Coldingley is a men’s “category C training and resettlement prison”, holding mostly long-term prisoners, including some with life sentences.
The team, led by Neil Willis, hold Sunday morning services in the prison several times a year. This ministry is one of our ‘Welcome Works’ (the various social action ministries we do to serve people in need, both within and beyond our own church family).
As Jesus said in Matthew 25v36, “I was in prison and you came to visit me”
Another World
Neil says: “Coldingley Prison is like another world just up the road in Bisley, requiring rigorous security to get in (and out!) We go through an ‘airlock’ and multiple locked gates before we arrive in the chapel with its decorative bars at the windows. Usually around 30 prisoners attend, and often a couple of them will join the band that we take in ourselves, playing on the violin and guitar. We praise God with what sounds a bit like a Welsh male voice choir of baritones and basses, and we always feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in that place; it’s very special!
“As a church we’ve been going in for over 15 years, and sadly some of the regular attendees have been coming to our services all of that time; it’s hard to imagine what it must be like to be in there for so long. We do not discuss people’s offences, and do not judge in any way. Many are there because of a combination of appalling circumstances, and let’s be reminded that many of the Apostles knew what it was like to be imprisoned.
“Recently we’ve felt challenged to better serve the residents, to build on relationships, and to see more of God at work in the prison. We are having more requests for prayer after the service, and the men are really opening up to us in different ways. I recently prayed with a guy who was wracked with guilt at having let his mother down. Another very young man had just arrived too, and was obviously struggling, but he agreed to attend the Alpha Course that they run.
“The 30 or so men that come to the chapel each Sunday are God’s church in that place of over 500 men, and we try to encourage them to be a light to the others, which is no mean task as you might imagine.The prison Chaplin and his team seem to love it when we come in and we’re now talking about increasing our visit frequency to 8 or more times a year.
Running the prison services is both a privilege and a great opportunity, and it also blesses us as a team, although there’s always a sense of relief when we get out into the fresh air again – we appreciate our freedom that little bit more. It’s great to be doing God’s work in such a place, and it is very real!“
Why not get involved?
Beyond the Sunday Prison Services, there are several other aspects to what we do with our prisons work, and you can read about that on our Welcome Works web page by clicking here. If you want to get involved in these, or any of our other Welcome Works, do please let us know. You can do that by dropping us an email our by speaking to Neil or to Dub or to any of us in the offices. And, if it’s not for you, please pray for the work that’s going on, and please encourage the teams that go in.
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