At the beginning of 2014 our leadership team had a new vision for Champions Church, to build a car park on the front of the building. That might not sound that ground breaking but I want to explain to you the journey we went on and what it really means to Champions Church.
See this is more than a car park! Yes, it does provide much needed parking outside the front of our Church making it more accessible to less able people but it doesn’t stop there. It has raised the profile of our church as people who have walked past the front of our building many times suddenly question what it is and It has made the building more useful for groups to use, adding parking to the already excellent facilities on offer.
It has shown what a small group of people can achieve when they have Faith in God, a determination to see Gods plan realised and, when needed, a heart of generosity.
As I said the journey started in 2014 when blueprints where drawn up and planning permission was granted by Craven district council, this in it self was a massive answer to prayer as there were those that felt we wouldn’t get it.
Over the coming months (August 14 – May 15) we embarked on the process of engaging with contractors and comparing quotes culminating with a quote of £13,569.60 to complete the work. As a small church this would require significant fundraising and grant applications to achieve and many avenues were explored in order to achieve this.
Significant grant awards from Garfield Western (2k) and Congregational & General (1k) were amazing breakthroughs as, as you can imagine, a church car park was not something a lot of funders would want to fund.
In May 2015 we saw the real heart of generosity of our church family (and beyond) as we held a special offering during our main event and many donations, often sacrificially made came in over the coming months.
In early May 2016 we saw our journey almost at its end as the contractors “broke ground” in what was both a happy and scary time as we hoped and prayed the end result was going to be a good one. The work came to its conclusion in the last week of August and as the contractors cleared the last of their tools and barriers we saw in front of us a true answer to prayer and definitely more than just a Car Park.
On Sunday the 11th of September we will hold our Ribbon Cutting Celebration service as we thank God and everyone else that has been involved in this newly constructed car park. We will have guest speaker Christian Gale From Gateway Church, Bradford and lots of other special guests. Join us for complimentary hospitality at 10:30am and be part of this special occasion.