Elim’s Letchworth Garden City Church is celebrating its centenary by focusing on three things that will be foundational for the future. Pastor Carl Johnston explains all.
From humble beginnings in a wooden hut to faithful service through fallow years and times of growth, Letchworth Garden City Church has a fruitful history.
And today, the church is also enjoying its commitment to community outreach and the growth it is seeing as people join from a widening radius of towns.
In LGCC’s centenary year, therefore, pastor Carl Johnston, pictured above, inset, with wife Dani, is keen that 12 months of centenary celebrations recognise the church’s rich history and draw on it to inspire the future. Three focus areas will help it do that, says.
Honouring the past
The first priority for LGCC during its centenary year is to honour the past and those who have served the church, says Carl.
“We stand on the shoulders of a lot of people who have gone before us and there are phenomenal stories of God’s faithfulness too.”
These pioneers include the Phillips family, who were influential in Elim’s early years, with Dollie Phillips and her brother Hubert Phillips serving as the church’s first pastors. It also includes 96-year-old Vi Brown, whose father dug the footings of the original church building in the 1920s. “She’s alive and well and has been a faithful servant for many years, along with her husband Colin who was an elder here.”
To recognise all who have helped build the church over the years, LGCC treated leaders and church members past and present to a centenary celebration in February.
“Honouring the past helps us embrace the future, and we recognise we wouldn’t be where we are today without them,” says Carl.
New ways for fresh mission
“The church was birthed in an atmosphere of mission – not just local mission during the revival at that time, but very much this sense of being called to further afield and overseas. Today we feel God is calling us to tap into that again, to dig some of those wells for a new season,” says Carl. “So the second thing we’re concentrating on this year is asking God what that looks like in a new century. We very much recognise that mission is in God’s DNA, with his only Son coming as a missionary to earth.”
One big opportunity lies in the areas surrounding the church. Around half of the congregation members actually live in Letchworth, while others travel in from around north Hertfordshire and central Bedfordshire.
“We’re asking how we engage with people from these towns in the places where God has put them.”
Another opportunity lies in the current migration of people out of London.
“We’re seeing a real diversity of people moving into the area who are searching for a church to belong to that has a true sense of family.
“People are getting a different experience of church than their preconceived ideas and that’s giving them a fresh understanding of what it means to be part of one.”
Clearing debt
After steady growth in the early 2000s, LGCC took a huge step and bought and renovated a former WW2 parachute factory in 2005. Eighteen years on, just £260,000 of the £1.4m mortgage remains and Carl says it’s time to pay it off.
“We believe God is saying it’s time to clear this debt – not so we can invest it back into the building but in order to release funds for mission, to be a blessing to the community around us and to reach more people with the good news of Jesus.”
The church already invests in community outreach, with a school uniform bank and pop-up uniform shops run in partnership with other local churches and all the primary schools in Letchworth. It also supports community projects run by others, including a food bank, Choice Pregnancy and CAP.
One big community project is LGCC’s Adventure Tots group, which Carl says is bursting at the seams and in need of expansion. “We want to do more, particularly focusing on babies and children with additional needs. It’s about creating more space to reach and empower more people. We want to pay off our debt because we’d like to be a church that makes an impact in north Hertfordshire and central Bedfordshire.”
