The staff and trustees at Church Growth Trust are constantly blessed by finding churches to repurpose and reuse buildings, ensuring that God’s work continues in communities up and down the country. It is lovely to catch up with them to find out how things are going and to share their stories of growth and inspiration with the readers of Foundations magazine. From Nottingham to Norwich, from Wollaston to Crawley, here are four remarkable accounts of churches and charities doing great things through the power of God.
In Nottingham, Clumber Hall was a small evangelical church in the city centre with a passion for living faith. As their numbers dwindled and their main elder was in poor health, they made the decision to gift their building to Church Growth Trust (CGT), meeting for the last time two years later at the end of 2018. After the usual period of marketing the property John Duffield, CGT’s Property Manager met Kristian Thorpe, Lead Pastor of Arena Church in Nottingham at a conference around that time. Julie Turner, Arena’s Executive Pastor, takes up the story.
“We had thought about finding a church building in the centre of Nottingham, but we certainly hadn’t planned to do anything about it in 2019, as we were very busy launching three new campuses and our hands were full. John came to see us in spring of 2019, felt a connection with us and encouraged us to think about taking over Clumber Hall. He told us that he felt we needed to launch in the September. Kristian and I really tried not to go ahead with it, but John kept coming back. One day, Kristian said, “I feel I am saying no to God because I am not ready, but God is saying ‘Come on, you can do it.’” In hindsight, God knew about the pandemic and was speaking to us through John, encouraging us to launch in September 2019, which is exactly what we did; although we only got the keys in June.”
