The Pavilion Project
April 24th 2012
Completion On Rileys Snooker Hall
We finally completed the purchase of Rileys Snooker Hall, soon to be The Pavilion – home of LifeSpring Church.
This was a momentous occasion in our life as a church, and marks a new season for us too. For 30 years we have been a church without a building, but now we are the proud owners of a large old cinema which will need to be gutted and rebuilt – to serve LifeSpring and the local community.
As I write, we are in the process of clearing out the building, but we hope that finances will be raised, change of use obtained, and a workforce engaged (both volunteers and professionals) to enable us to use the building as a church and community centre before the end of this year.
Neville
January 2012
A building for LifeSpring
LifeSpring started life as a house church in 1979. We were happy to meet in homes and rent buildings; after all the church was people, not buildings! We were also happy that our expenditure was going into supporting people and not in maintaining buildings, but as we began to grow and new ministries developed, we began to realise that a building could really serve our vision as a church after all.
This was quite a change of mind-set for many of us, but we also realised that most (not all) growing and vibrant churches had their own buildings to work out from. So over the last decade we have begun to seriously consider a building for LifeSpring.
We have looked at various options and for one reason or another none have come to fruition. Then in the beginning of 2011 we were approached by an Anglican church to consider a ‘church share’ as they had a dwindling congregation. The location for us wasn’t ideal, but we were surprised when most of our church members were so positive about moving location and sharing this building. It was clear – LifeSpring really wanted a home!
At the same time as we were considering this option, we were alerted to a snooker hall near the town centre coming on the market. Two trustees quickly checked it out, looked at each other and thought ‘Wow! This could be so exciting!’
When more members had the opportunity to view, excitement grew about the potential this building had. It really could become a building to facilitate our vision in an ideal location – and become a home for LifeSpring.
At the time of writing, nearly one year on we are still negotiating, but our hope and expectation is that we will soon have a building – a building to be used for the glory of God, a building to help us fulfil the vision God has given us.
This particular building poses enormous challenges for us. It is very big! It is very expensive! It needs a lot of work to turn it into a church & community centre. And it will require much sacrifice in terms of financial giving, time, personnel and resources. It feels impossible! But it also feels like God is leading us, so we are trusting Him to make the impossible, possible!
Neville
If you would like to volunteer with the work happening at the Pavilion please download the form below, fill it in and hand back to the church office or Jon Hollands:
Volunteer Form for help with the pavilion
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