Capital fund raising completed

Friday 25th October 2024 16:18

I don’t think I will ever forget the last 14 months. In July 2023 the PCC met after church in the side chapel to decide shall we commission Feltham Construction to build four rooms two loos and a kitchen at the back of church. At the time we had about £300,000 and needed a further £500,000 to be able to pay the builders. One of our members said we need to step out in faith after all we are a church and not social services” and that is what we did even though we didn’t have enough money the builders started in late September. 

The very next week at a conference called New Wine the second speaker said “the church needs to walk by faith otherwise we are no different from social services” and I felt that God was confirming to us that we had taken the right decision. 

We are massively thankful to Kate Newman who did a brilliant job of making bids to grant givers and raised more than £200,000 from bodies such as Greenham Trust, Benefact Trust, Oxford Diocese, Laing Trust, Berkshire Historic Churches Trust, Garfield Weston, St Nics, Newbury, Englefield Trust . 

The congregation have also been amazingly generous with the average church member giving £1500 and the average couple giving £3000. In addition two or three of our more wealthy members have match funded many of these donations, so that the grand total of £800,000 has been raised in about 14 months. I have frequently been brought to tears by the sacrificial generosity of our church members. Thankfully Kate had compassion on me and asked “Shall I announce the numbers?”

So Thanks be to God for doing so much more than all we asked or imagined. Once we had our planning permission Feltham’s took 7 months to do all of the building works and in 14 months the whole building project is paid for. It really is amazing and something I am sure I will remember for the rest of my life. 

Yours sincerely,