An interview with Church Growth Trust’s Chief Executive Giles Arnold
Question: What has been happening over the last few years?
Answer: We have seen a lot of changes in the last three years. We moved offices, to be able to accommodate the expanding team and we took on a new Property Manager (John Duffield) to improve further on our proactive management of our properties. John is now supported by a part-time Property Administrator (Elaine Roberts), who is not only enabling the Property Manager to manage more properties, but also help our occupying churches with tools to enable them to keep up to date with compliance issues and new legislation. I am delighted also that our Architect (Gill Pedler) has been able to increase her hours, in order to take on more building projects for our own properties as well as for clients. And then there is our Operations Director (Garryl Willis) and our Office Administrator (Mandy Harris), who are developing more efficient ways of working and new systems to allow for the work of Church Growth Trust to grow further.
Question: Has there been a change in direction for Church Growth Trust?
Answer: In many ways we continue to do the work that we were originally set up to do, but I think there has been a change in our focus. We have always had a passion for keeping church properties in Gospel use, but we have now made this part of our vision (i.e. “We aspire to glorify God by safeguarding for Gospel use independent church properties and making them fit for their God-given purpose”) and are putting more and more effort into achieving this. We have always worked with the assemblies/churches that occupy our buildings to help them with building projects where they want to improve the property. In one case we even built a new building (Miracle House at Wickford). But now we are looking at all of our buildings to see how they can be improved to make them more fit for their God-given purpose. This is now part of our vision and our strategy for the future.
To read more of this interview click on our Foundations magazine below and you can continue on pages 4&5