## **New Life Christian Centre** ## **Annual Report** **2024** New Life Christian Centre, Colne, West Street, Lancashire BB8 0HP Registered Charity No. 1051832 ## Contents: ## • The Year that was ## • Going Forward ## • General Information 2024 year marks the 11[th] year of my pastorate here at New Life, Colne and probably one of the more challenging years, we as a church have faced. In February we lost Eileen Burt who went to be with the Lord on the 6[th] February and on July 4[th] , Derek Wick, a Trustee and beloved member of New Life. Alongside this a number of people relocated which made continuing to attend New Life untenable. However, despite the losses, God is good and we have seen new projects begin and others continue to grow and develop. ## The Year That Was This year we continued to aim to fulfil the vision for our church which is to: Love God, Love People, to Reach people with the love of God, Raise disciples and Release people to serve in the family of the church and beyond. ## **Reach** ## **Breakfast Bags and Kids Crafts:** During the school holidays, New Life offers free breakfast bags and kids crafts to anyone from the community. Families are invited to come on a Wednesday morning 10-12noon and take breakfast items to help feed their families during the holidays. They can simply take food or stay for free tea, coffee, toast and kids crafts. This outreach has been very effective and continues to grow and help the wider community. The Summer holidays especially see a greater engagement of families and uptake of breakfast bags. We have been greatly helped with the kindness of One Stop Local shop who have donated money and items to this great facility. ## **Schools Work:** It's been a great privilege this year to continue to deliver assemblies in local primary schools: West Street and Park Primary. These assemblies are always well received by children and staff. Pastor Pauline continues to be on the Governing Board at West Street. ## **Christmas and Easter Events:** Christmas and Easter are always great opportunities to show God's love to the wider community. At Christmas the church made up 25 food hampers which were given to the local school to help those who are particularly struggling at this time. We also held Christmas events and parties which were well attended. As something out of the ordinary for us, we also had a Carols and Christingle service which was well attended and appreciated. At Easter we enjoyed our Good Friday and Easter Sunday service followed by an Easter egg hunt which children from the community enjoyed. ## **Messy Church:** Messy Church takes place on the last Sunday of every month. Families are invited to join us in the church building for crafts, songs, games, a short story and then share pizza. This is a great environment which sees between 10 – 15 families take part. The children really engage with the activities and are growing in confidence. Volunteers are also growing in their confidence and interaction with people coming in. We continue to engage with families and have seen many attend other events and church. ## **Rise Girls Event:** Chloe continues to engage with girls from 9 upwards in her quarterly 'Rise' Girls event. These have continued to be popular as girls enjoy pampering, crafts and other activities. More significantly they always hear a message related to self esteem and worth. These events are always well attended with between 20 – 40 girls attending each session ## **Outreach Events:** The church continued to engage with the community throughout special times of the year such as Father's Day. Mother's Day and Harvest with good attendance and new families supporting these events ## **Mission Support** The church has continued to support our missionaries Steven and Deborah Jenkins in the work they do overseas. It was great to have them share with us about the work they do Iraq and also Albania. The church helps with costs and finances aid which they take with them. Alongside this individual church members support a number of children in Rwanda through the organisation Compassion. New Life Kids also sponsor a child through this scheme. ## **New Life 2 U:** Our New Life 2 U fund was set up to benefit the community. This year the funds helped provide 25 Christmas hampers which were donated to the local schools. This fund also provided the breakfast items which feed up to 15 families a week during regular school holidays, increasing to 20 families during the Summer holidays. ## **Sunday Services** Our Sunday services take place weekly at 11am where people of all ages and backgrounds are invited to attend. We encourage people to engage in their faith through worship, times of prayer, sharing testimonies and hearing from the word of God. It's been great this year to see new people attend. We are thankful to our leaders and those playing an active role in Sunday services. Alongside the service we have creche facilities and a kids programme for children aged 5-11. ## **Online Engagement** Our Sunday services continue to be streamed online to Youtube. This has been great for those who can't always attend and many people watch back to hear the teaching again. We also have a Facebook page which is sometimes used for prayer times. We are grateful to Brian Hopwood and Jimmy Nawab for making our online presence possible. ## **Kid's Work and Youth Work** This year saw a significant change in the way we do our children's and Youth Work. Although for years we have had a successful children's group for 5 – 11 yr olds we have not had a consistent club for older children and youth. In February we changed our weekly kids club to fortnightly clubs for children aged 4 – 8 yr old and a youth group for children 9 – 16yrs old. This has worked well and though not great in number, the children and young people have made friendships and are growing in confidence and in their understanding of faith and God. ## **Little Friends Parent and Toddler Group** In February we relaunched our Parent and Toddler group which takes place on Tuesdays 1pm – 2.30pm during term time. We new see a core group of mums and have about 10 families on the books ## **Raise** As well as reaching people, we aim to see people grow in their love of Jesus and raise disciples who follow him wholeheartedly. ## **Prayer and Connect Groups** The year began with 21 days of prayer and fasting in January. This is always a great time and gives us time to focus on God and what he wants for us as a church in the year ahead. People were encouraged in their faith and expectant of God for the year ahead. Alongside this time of prayer, prayer meetings are held weekly before Sunday services and once a month on a Thursday evening. Alongside prayer we have fortnightly Connect groups. These are smaller groups where people connect with others, grow in their faith, study the Bible and encourage one another. We currently have 4 connect groups with approx 30 people in attendance. Our desire is that every person who attends church have other people they can connect with, and so we are continuing to try and engage more people in connect groups, including young people. As part of connect we launched youth connect which has been great for those who attend. ## **Training** It's been great this year to see 2 of our leaders attend the Assemblies of God conference: Pauline Street and Chloe Nawab. At this conference they were greatly encouraged and further trained in various aspects of ministry. As well as going to conference, other leaders have attended area days at Doncaster and Zone meetings with Assemblies of God at Bolton ## **Volunteers and Leaders Meetings** Over the course of the year leaders have met together on a monthly basis to pray and discuss future plans for the church. Volunteers have also had meetings in their teams to support and encourage one another going forward. ## **Minister in Training** Chloe Nawab continues to excel in her training with Assemblies of God to become a minister. She has been given opportunities to preach in church and faced any challenges she faces head on. Her contract ends in May 2026, however, her training course ends in May 2027 so we need to look to secure future funding for her and also increase her contracted hours if possible. **Baptism:** In September we had Baptism Sunday in which it was a delight to witness 5 people be baptised: four of which were under 20. ## **Release** At New Life we believe that everybody has a part to play and endeavour to release people to serve. ## **Youth and Children's Worker:** As already discussed it has been great this year to be able to see new initiatives take place. Employing Miss. Nawab as our Youth and Children's worker has created opportunities, not just for her, but the teams that work alongside her. We have seen several new volunteers across the different groups who have grown in confidence and skills. ## **Courses:** As part of our ongoing commitment to our volunteers, a number of courses have been available to them. In January, key people from our Youth and Children's work completed Safeguarding training, in February a First Aid course and in March, Food hygiene courses. We have many people who serve as volunteers across a wide range of activities ranging from maintaining the premises to investing in people through various programmes and outreach. ## **Leadership Academy** In Septemner we launched our Leadership Academy where we got a number of people together to develop them as people and also their skills in leadership. This group is continuing to grow and develop. It has been great to see a number of them rise to the challenge of leading small groups, heading up projects and preaching in Church. We are looking forward to seeing how they develop in the future. ## **Going Forward** We continue to be excited by all that God has in store for New Life in the future. We want to continue to be an outward looking church as well as having structures in place to support the growth of the organisation and individuals. ## **Reach** Next year we hope to continue the growth and development of our youth and children's outreach ministry. We want to encourage the core group to grow confident as a group and invite their friends . Toddlers – We want to continue to build connections with our parent and toddler group, see where the needs are are look to offer other things such as CAP money course and life skills Community Engagement – We want to continue to engage with the commnunity and seek to pursue new ways of doing so. Website – Our website has been inactive for quite a while now, so we want to redesign and relaunch our website. Men's and Womens groups. We want to look at the possiblility and launching mens and womens groups to reach people and create friendships within church ## **Raise** As well as whole church engagement we recognise the need for more diverse ways to engage with different groups of people. We will endeavour to hold quarterly men's and women's meetings and discuss their specific needs. We want to continue to train people in their faith, but also to better equip them in the areas in which they serve. ## **Release** As we release people to serve we want to continue to identify people's areas of gifting and help them to serve in ways that bring the best out of them. We hope to train people both practically and spiritually and equip them to serve in the church and wider community. ## **General Information** ## **Trustees of New Life Christian Centre for 2024** Pastor Pauline Street Mr Barry Dingle (Treasurer) Mrs Charlotte Hindle Mr Jimmy Nawab Miss Alice Mann Mr Glen Threlfall Mrs June Wick We would like to note our thanks to each of them for their hard work. Also we would like to record our thankfulness to Derek Wick who served so faithfully throughout his time here and who without him, much of our current processes would not be in place. New Life Christian Centre is a church with an organisational and decision making structure as follows:- 1. The Church Council are the management trustees of the church, responsible for all legal and financial decisions on behalf of the church. The Senior Minister leads this council and has the casting vote in split decisions. 2. The Oversight of the Church – usually the Senior Minister and the leadership team is responsible for the spiritual leadership of the church and reports to the church council. 3. All other departments are responsible to the Oversight and ultimately to the church council. ## **Legal and Administrative Information** ## 1. The name of the charity is 'New Life Christian Centre'. Charity Number 1051832 Address: West Street, Colne, Lancs, BB8 0HP 2. The governing document is the 'Model Constitution with Trust Deed for Local Assemblies of God'. 3. Trustees are appointed by the Church Council. 31n2r2024 3111212023 48A19.34 8.4BB.15 54.589.63 48A1924 63￿Tr.78 4a.419ad 63.077.78 EN￿$1 IdefrAI {14.658.441 63.071.78 (685.85) 83.763. 48A19.34 64077.78 41419.34 6J.071.78 19J4 63.077.78 4¥. 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