Church Gate: A Big Encouragement

By Steve Petch on July 4, 2024

The Sunday will be the second of two Gift Sundays towards our Church Gate building project. I wrote in a blog that I posted last week about our goal for all of us to participate; please do read it if you missed it. This week I want to share an encouragement:

Whilst preparing for last Sunday's meetings I was searching for a certain document on my desktop. As I was searching I came across a forgotten document that I'd saved at some point in the past. It wasn't what I was looking for and the title - '151017.doc' - gave little away as to what it actually contained. I opened it to see what it was and it stopped me in my tracks.

The document contained the transcript of a prophetic word given to our church by Guy Miller (the leader of our Commission family of churches) on Sunday 15th October 2017, the day I was appointed as Lead Elder at Welcome Church. Viewing it now in light of our plans for Church Gate, a building to the east side of our current site where we will open the community grocery, the Welcome Cafe and more, I can only say "WOW!" This is what it said ...

"I saw a house, a big old house. Some of the windows had been blocked in. Some of the rooms had not been used for a while. The kitchen table had been covered over...

"I saw the builders coming and some of the old doors being knocked down. I could see ... a sledge hammer knocking out a few doors. Suddenly light is pouring in, people are pouring in ... around the kitchen table there weren't 5 people, there was something like 100 around the kitchen table. I think food is going to be a big thing for the Church, feeding people, whether that is the word of God or actual physical food, I don't know.

"I see a great big conservatory being built on the East side. It is where the sun is going to shine. It's where it is going to bring people in and they are going to enjoy the sunshine of this group of people, knowing the love of God.

"The basement needs to be opened up. It's all full of cobwebs and dusty things. There are things that are in your history and heritage that need to be brought into the light ... things that God has spoken; promises; things you have seen before. God says, 'I want you to bring them up and start using them for this day'.

"There are many rooms. There are many people God is going to save; the poor, the needy, the nations are going to come. God says this house will be full. At the moment, you don't have a full house ... there are many, many people; well over a 1000 people; this church is going to grow to.

"This is just as a starter and you need to be reaching out saying its faith, not our effort. It's not 'our best shot', its grace."

I hope that like me you're encouraged! I believe it confirms again that God is at work through this project and will provide all we need; He knew about it long before we did, and the timing is all in His hands - even the 'completely by chance' timing of me finding the document again. Be blessed!