Community Fun Day At Encounter Church Stockton On Tees

Encounter Church Stockton On Tees has recently renewed its vision with new name, a new logo and mission to reach the challenging community its serves. We are a place to Encounter Life and Encounter Hope and Encounter Jesus. A small assembly which has in essence treated the relaunch like a church planting effort with a big vision for local mission in its DNA

As an act of faith we organised a community fun day on Saturday August 19th and advertised in the area. We have no firm contacts but relied on prayer and local shops letting us display our posters.

With a packed programme of face painting, games, arts, crafts, beat the Goalie, bouncy castle and lashings of free food and drink. ,

Pastor Neil Harris who took over as Lead Pastor (Unsalaried) in March and his committed team of ten helpers expected maybe a few families may pop by. Throughout the day we had 120 people come through the door from children to teens to couples right up to a few lovely older folks. All totally new contacts we didn’t know! Many from different ethnicities and backgrounds.

The local people were excited to see inside the church and asked many questions about who we were and what we did, and what they would like to see us offer the community. Two local councillors also attended and were thrilled to see such a good attendance. We hope to do more community outreach.

Pray we now find new ways to build on this and see salvations in God’s vineyard in this tiny corner of North East England!