Work starts on church for the 21st Century

Work began yesterday on a £11/2m state-of-the-art church building that will house a growing congregation.

The Everyday Champions’ Church is building new premises on Jessop Close, Newark, after outgrowing its former base on Sherwood Avenue.

Members of the church, formerly the Emmanuel Christian Centre, held their last service at Sherwood Avenue in August last year.

Since then the congregation has met at the Magnus Church of England School, Earp Avenue.

The former church was sold for £1/2m to architects and engineering company, Burks Green.

The money will help to pay for the Jessop Close project.

The new building, being designed with the help of Lincoln-based Lindum Construction, will have a community café, a pre-school nursery, an IT suite, conference facilities, offices for the church and charity organisation, and an auditorium with seating for up to 500 people.

There will be parking space for 90 cars.

Building work is set to be completed by October 13.

The church leader, Pastor Gareth Morgan, said they would be looking to move in a few weeks after that date.

AN ARTIST’S impression of the new Everyday Champions’ Church.

“We are a modern church and have gone for a multi-purpose centre,” he said.

“It will be a community building, and that also includes the business community.”

Mr Morgan said income from the café, nursery and conference facilities would help to finance social enterprise.

He said the money would be invested in the many activities the church hosted in the Newark area, such as youth clubs, and parent and toddler groups.

Mr Morgan said a surprising number of churches were embarking on similar projects.

He said Newark Industrial Estate was close to many of the groups of people they worked with and helped.

He said they wanted to raise money to buy a mini-bus to transport the elderly and young families to the centre.

Pastor Morgan’s father, Pastor Ken Morgan, took over the church about 25 years ago when it was little more than a mission hut on Sherwood Avenue.

Today, an average of 150 people attend Sunday services and between 350 and 400 people visit the church during the week.