We knew it was coming in the near future but, like most people, I was surprised this week when the Prime Minister revealed the date of the next UK General Election as Thursday 4th July. Here are a few thoughts and pointers for us as a church:

1. Welcome Church Will Be A Polling Station

I’m delighted that Welcome Church will be used as a polling station for this election; it means that lots of local people who have not yet been into our building will see it for the first time. (It also means there will be no entry at all to the chapel that day, except for those designated to vote there!) Let’s pray that, as well as voting in our building, some will feel inspired to come back and join us on a Sunday.

2. Unity Is Key

Unity is key for any church; disunity, gossip and division do profound damage. If we disagree with someone’s political viewpoint we are still allowed to love them. We don’t have to win every argument and we don’t always have to tell people when we disagree with them.

Ephesians 4v2-3 says,

“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”

With this in mind:

3. We Are Politically Neutral As A Church

Although there are issues we may speak about or take action on, both through what we say and through our social action ministries, we are not allied to any one political party, either nationally or locally, nor will we tell people how they should vote, though we encourage everyone who is allowed to vote to do so. I’ll be voting myself, but I won’t be telling you who for.

People from our church have stood for election to local government, at both town and county level, for all three of the main political parties, and also as independent candidates. Others have been engaged with various political parties or campaigned on other social issues. To me that’s a good sign that we can have a range of views amongst us, and still walk in unity together.

Let’s make sure that we all act in love towards one another over these coming weeks, including on social media. That’s not to say no one should ever express an opinion but, as it says in 1 Thess 4v11, “make it your ambition to lead a quiet life” – I think that’s a great verse for Christians to apply to their social media accounts!

And be warned: if anything political appears in any of our Welcome Church Facebook groups, or in the comments on our other social media posts, it will be deleted and the poster may get blocked.

4. A Helpful Resource

Today CARE UK have launched an excellent website for Christians, to help us consider all the issues in the run up to the general election – it’s called engaGE24.

It has information about policies, video interviews with Christian MPs, a blog, a podcast and a 40-day prayer resource. One fun feature is their election quiz, where you can find out which party’s policies you most align with by answering a list of questions – I tried it out this morning 😃.

CARE, who are strictly politically neutral say:

“Our aim is to equip the UK Church to engage effectively with this election. Research tells us that Christians will vote. The question before all of us is who will we vote for? I pray our resources will help you as you come to your decision. I think this election is a golden opportunity for the Church to engage and make our voice heard.“

To take the survey, click here.

5. Finally, Let’s Pray

We are told in 1 Timothy 2v1-3,

“I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Saviour …”

The outcome of this election will shape our lives and our country in all sorts of ways for years to come. Let’s pray for God’s will to be done and for our country to increasingly be a place where Christian truth can be proclaimed, and we can worship freely and share the gospel without fear of repercussions.

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.

It took a little longer than we’d hoped, and there were some tricky twists and turns along the way, but on Monday this week we exchanged contracts with the sellers of Church Gate. Praise God!

Completion is set for Friday 17th May, at which point we will have the keys for Church Gate, along with planning permission to turn it from an office block into a multi-use building for our church. If you’re unsure what Church Gate is all about then please click here to read about our plans or click here to find out about the costs and challenges involved.

Of course, owning the building is just the start to our Church Gate adventure – we now have lots of work to do to make the building useable, and turn our plans into reality.

What happens now?

There are several steps ahead for us once we get the keys:

First: we will be holding various ‘stakeholder’ meetings inside Church Gate, with each of the different user groups, to talk about our plans for inside and outside the building. It’s currently something of a blank canvas but, to quote Proverbs 11v14, “victory is won through many advisers.”

Second: in June this year we will hold open days for people from Welcome Church to come and look around Church Gate and see what we’ve taken on, and also to give opportunity for more people to comment on the plans. For reasons of safety you will need to book a time slot to attend an open day, and they will be for adults (16 years+) only. Details for booking a slot will be available soon. I hope you’re as excited to look around as I was.

Third: we will consult with professional advisors to help us plan how to turn our ideas into reality. Ideally we hope to use some of the same people who worked with us on the last building project and did such a great job.

Fourth: we will hold Gift Days at the end of June and the start of July to help us towards our financial goal of raising at least £2 million for the project over two years. So far £1.3m has been given or pledged so we are well on the way but we still have some more ground to cover together.

More information

During May we will be giving out a new booklet about Church Gate with all the details people need to know, so do be on the look out for this (it’s currently with the printers). When you get your copy please read it carefully and prayerfully and, if you have any questions, please just ask.

Philippians 1v4-6 says,

“I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

It’s a great thing for us to be in partnership together for the gospel as a church and, like Paul, I’m confident that He who began this good work in us will now carry it on to completion. So, as we come to look around the building, let’s look around it prayerfully, with our spiritual eyes and ears open to what God wants to do in the lives of children and young people through Church Gate, and also what He will do through us to help those in need in our town – not least through our planned Community Grocery.

Our big goal in all of this is to see many lives transformed through Jesus; this is all about the gospel. It’s now time to press forward into this adventure together!

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.

We’re looking forward to a great Easter Weekend at Welcome Church. Here are a few bits of news to keep you up to date, and also some prayer requests:

Prayers for the council

My Easter weekend begins this evening: I’ve been invited by the Mayor of Woking, Cllr M Ilyas Raja, to open tonight’s Council Meeting at the Civic Offices with prayers. It’s only a short slot but it’s a great chance to pray in person for our council as they make key decisions about the future of our town. Do be praying for wisdom for them all at this time. It seems that the financial challenges being faced in Woking are only just starting to bite, and worse may be yet to come as services come under pressure. Let’s pray for our town.

Church Gate

We had hoped to exchange contracts on Church Gate, the building we are buying, today (28th March) but sadly this has been delayed due to some small last minute queries being raised by banks and solicitors. This has been made worse by people raising queries and then immediately going on holiday … 🙄

Anyone who’s bought a house will know how drawn out these things can be! Please do pray that we exchange contracts next week. We are keen to get started on our plans for the future of Church Gate as soon as possible.

Good Friday

We’ll meet as a church at 7pm on Good Friday, for an hour or so, to worship, hear from the Bible, and take communion together. I’ll be giving a short talk reflecting on the cross.

Children are welcome to attend if you feel they are old enough to access this kind of meeting, but please be aware that there is no kids work, so they will need to remain with their parents/carer at all times. The meeting will be live-streamed at WelcomeChurch.online. Do join us one way or the other for a great chance to connect with Jesus on Good Friday.

Easter Sunday

Our Easter Sunday meetings, at 9am and 11am, will both include baptisms. 17 people are expected to be baptised with us that day. There will be a chocolate Easter gift for everyone who attends, so do invite your friends and family to come with you. Please also be encouraged to pray for all of those being baptised.

EARLY WARNING: It’s clock change Sunday, so the clocks will go forward one hour this Sunday morning. Don’t get caught out 🙂

Holidays

The church offices will be closed on both Good Friday and Easter Monday, and our Welcome Cafe will not be operating on Easter Monday either. A number of the team have also booked some days off next week, including myself. I’ll be back again for Sunday 7th though, when I’ll be launching our new preaching series on the book of Exodus. Don’t miss it!

Whatever you’re up to this weekend I hope you have a great Easter.

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.

If you’ve been around Welcome Church for a while you’ve probably noticed that we’ve grown a lot numerically over the last couple of years, and much faster than we expected. We’re often seeing around 1000 people on a Sunday morning now and new people are still appearing regularly. This is great news, and what it now means is that:

• The 9am meeting has grown well, but still has space for more people to attend
• The 11am meeting has grown a lot more, and is now almost full (and occasionally overfull)

11am being full is a nice problem to have … but it’s still a genuine problem, especially because we want to continue to grow and reach new people, so we need your help.

The way forward

Assuming we continue to grow (which is not guaranteed, but we pray it continues) we will need to make more space somehow; perhaps we need to make the space in order to continue to grow.

We could, of course, create space by starting a third Sunday meeting at a different time, or by starting a new ‘site’ of Welcome Church in another part of town, or by some new ‘church plants’ being sent out … any or all of these are possible in the future as God leads us.

HOWEVER … right now our big focus is on getting Church Gate up and running (click here for details) and we expect that this will absorb most of our teams capacity for the next season.

Thankfully, at this point in time, we do have another option to create some more space on Sundays … so with this in mind we want to make a few requests of those who call Welcome Church their church.

Some requests for those who usually attend at 11am

Firstly, for the sake of the gospel and for the sake of our mission to Woking, we would like to ask for at least 50 adults (plus their families) who currently attend the 11am meeting each week, to move to the 9am meeting instead. It’s a big ask, we realise, but we would ask you to please take this request very seriously. It could be the single most evangelistic thing you do all year.

There are some advantages to attending at 9am: easier parking, better choice of pastries, and an earlier finish, leaving you more of the day free to enjoy.

We would love at least 50 brave pioneering people, plus their families, to make this call for the sake of all that God is calling us to as a church . Maybe there are a couple of life groups who might make this call together. Please pray and ask God: is it me/us?

Obviously we don’t want everyone to do this, so it would help a lot if you could let us know that you’re making the switch by emailing us (click here for a link). Some have done this already – thank you. We will have to work through the impact on serving rotas too, so it will really help for people to let us know.

Secondly, for those who don’t move to 9am, you could help a lot by filling up from the front and using every seat – just 2 empty seats in each row is 80 empty seats in the meeting, so please use them all 🙂

Some requests for those who usually attend at 9am

Firstly, please don’t start attending at 11am – we have no room for you 🙂 – please stay where you are!

Secondly, please be on the front foot to invite guests and welcome new people. 9am has grown more slowly than 11am, but it is still growing with new people.

Thirdly, we actually need a few more people to serve in some key areas at 11am! This may sound counter-intuitive with the extra number of people in attendance at 11am, but the needs are actually greater at this meeting too, and many who attend are still new to us. It means that the demands for serving have grown more quickly than those ready and able to do so are available. Maybe you could consider attending at 9am, but serving at 11am one week in three? If you’re up for this adventure please let us know by emailing us (using this link) and we’ll be in touch

One more thing

Please pray for God’s wisdom and timing in all we do – especially that he would guide us clearly in terms of starting any new meetings or sites in the future, and also that we’d get the keys to Church Gate by the end of March. Of course, if we continue to grow, every step like this will only be a temporary step!

I’m looking forward to the next chapter in our adventure together as a church, whatever that may be. Thanks in advance for your help!

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.

I’m delighted to announce that Jonathan and Sabrina arrived this week from India. They will be here for a year, working in the Welcome Church Offices as “Leadership Trainees”.

I asked Jonathan to write an ‘introduction to them both’ for us as a church (I’d have asked Sabrina too, but she has no sooner arrived than she’s been laid up with a bad cold and sore throat – probably the result of living in 3 different countries in 3 weeks …)

Here’s what Jonathan had to say:

“Hello! It’s always a little weird having to write an introduction about yourself. There’s something about writing things down, as opposed to speaking in conversation, that feels like it’s being set in stone. Like everything I say is on the record and will have existed beyond the limits of a verbal introduction. However, I will do my best as I briefly let you know who we are. Before that though, thank you Steve for having me on your blog. Love what you’ve done with the place! 😉

“My name is Jonathan. I’m a 20-something aged film and board-game lover who hails from Mumbai, India. It was only earlier this year that I married my best friend Sabrina, who comes from Visalia, California. How we ended up together is quite a story; you might even call it a miracle.

“Like I said, I was born and raised in Mumbai, India. I was born into a Christian family. My father (Vinu – some of you may know him) has led our local church for as long as I can remember. I am what you could call a pure-blooded PK (‘Pastors Kid’ for those wondering!) I love film and music, and have dreams to write and direct my own features someday. I am a storyteller at heart, and that permeates everything I do, or have done. I’m also a musician.

“Sabrina was born and raised in California and can be considered a half-blood PK (her dad was a youth pastor briefly). She is a highly creative, funny and artistic woman, who is excellent with kids and that has permeated everything she has ever done. She loves working with youth especially.

“We met in 2021 when I traveled to the USA to do a year long Bible school that Sabrina’s home church was organising. We both come from very different cultures and backgrounds (I’m Indian; she’s of Hispanic origin – a Mexican American), and it is truly God who brought us together. We are so grateful for it.

“We got engaged in February 2023 and planned to get married in November of that year. Everything was set in place, bookings were made, deposits paid. However, on returning to the US after a short visit home, I was denied entry and deported on grounds of having an incorrect visa (there’s a whole other story there …)

“Every plan, dream, and desire seemed to be crushed in that moment. We were forced to pivot whilst not really knowing what was next or why any of it had happened. Long story short: God had a plan all along. As part of that very plan, here I am, writing on Steve’s blog.

“At the same time as the USA closed it’s doors on me, India began to close its doors on Sabrina in a different way, as she developed all kinds of health complications related to being in India (not least, she has a severe tree nut allergy and India loves nuts). So we got before God and asked him to lead us and to send us where he wanted us to go. We both had plans and jobs serving God is the USA, so the question became ‘If not here Lord, then where?’

“That’s when Steve invited us to join Welcome Church for a year as Leadership Trainees. After much prayer and consideration – not least of the weather 🙂 – the answer was clear: this was God’s plan; this is where we needed to be; this is what He was building up to all along.

“In many ways England is a perfect middle ground for us. A little bit of similarity to the USA, a little bit of similarity to India and a whole lot that is completely new to us.

So we were married in India and, just 2 weeks later, packed our bags and moved to Woking.

“And now we’re here. Ready, willing, and able. Ready for God to use us in a new place, in a new culture and amongst a new people. Willing to say ‘Yes’ to God in this new season in whatever He’s calling us into. And able to serve his church and kingdom in whatever way he sees fit.

“We are very excited to join Welcome church and, in case you were wondering, you are true to your name! We have felt very accepted into this family already, and are eager to begin this journey God is taking us on.

“Our plans may fail and then some, but God knows best and we have faith in his mission for our lives.“

Let’s look out for them both

God has entrusted something precious to us as a church in sending Jonathan and Sabrina our way. It’s His doing, so let’s be faithful with this gift of two developing leaders.

Jonathan and Sabrina each come from a different culture – India and the USA. Now they are starting out on married life in a third culture. Let’s look out for them both, and pray for them. Let’s make them feel really welcome for the year ahead.

Dinner invites will be appreciated for sure – but remember: no nuts!

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.