Gift Day 2026 / Enlarge the Tent
As a church, we believe God is calling us to make room for more people to encounter Jesus, grow in faith and find community. Our 2026 Gift Day is an opportunity to invest in the foundations that support the life and growth of our church, particularly through strengthening and expanding the capacity of our staff team. Together, through generosity and faith, we can help prepare for all that God wants to do next in and through our church, our community and beyond.
To learn more, watch this video or read the video transcript below.
If you would like to give towards our 2026 Gift Day, you can follow this link or donate using your usual method referencing “Gift Day”.
Day to Pray & Fast
Do you want to make room in your life for more of God and to reach those around you? We’d love to seek God together on our “Day to Pray & Fast” which is happening on Thur 14th May. Below is the flyer we’ll be handing out in the church lobby on Sunday:
Video transcript (if you prefer to read):
The story of God features quite a lot of tents. Tents that the early people of God lived in, the tent of meeting where people gathered to worship God and was the spiritual heart and centre of the people of God. When one of Jesus’ earliest followers was recording the story of Jesus’ life he starts his account by telling us that God came to earth and made his dwelling among us. A literal translation of those words is that God came and camped out with us.
One of the most inspiring and challenging of the tent images in the Bible comes through a prophet called Isaiah.
God is speaking through Isaiah to the people of God and says to them “enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes, for you will spread out to the right and to the left.”
Our church is a wonderful, diverse collection of people and we meet together and do the journey of faith together in all sorts of ways. We have different stories, different journeys but a shared hope. Lives are being changed, faith is growing and community is forming and it is so beautiful.
Behind every welcome, every conversation, every life impacted, every kids craft, every youth activity, every group, every service, every daily bible devotion, every tea served and every cake consumed is a foundation that makes all of it possible.
That prophecy from Isaiah to the people of God is a call to make room, to prepare for what God is going to do next. Because when God brings growth, we have to be ready for it.
Right now we are seeing that growth. More people than ever before are coming, more lives are being changed, more opportunities are opening up. But a growing church needs a growing foundation. And we have lots of elements to the foundation of our church… the amazing volunteers, trustees, elders, buildings, teams and our staff team too. Over the next three years we believe that it is time to lengthen the cords and strengthen the stakes by investing in the capacity of our staff team.
That will enable us to care deeply, lead faithfully, equip and empower volunteers and make more space for people to encounter Jesus and help those who do know Jesus take next steps on their journey of faith.
In our annual gift day this year we have an opportunity to respond to that call. Not just to maintain what we have, but to step forward in faith and prepare for what’s ahead. We believe God is inviting us to be bold and generous to make room.
We want to invest in the capacity of our staff team by making it possible for Chris Choules who is currently our Communications Director to train for church leadership. We want to release him from two days a week of his current role by employing others to do some of his job to enable him to do some biblical and theological study and to take on some more leadership responsibilities including more preaching and teaching. That in turn will free up time from other members of our team to invest in other initiatives to help us enlarge the tent.
If between us all we gave around £30,000 through this gift day that would make it possible for us to make that investment in Chris and in our staff team for the next 2 years and if we gave £40,000 that would fully fund that training for 3 years.
As we invest in growing the capacity of our staff team, we are building a stronger foundation for the future of this church as we seek to equip people to find and follow Jesus. And every gift, every act of generosity, helps stretch the tent a little wider.
This is about people not yet here, stories not yet told, lives waiting to be changed. Together we can enlarge the tent and the impact we can have for Jesus in our community and our world.
