What are we doing?

To accommodate our growing church whānau and to resource the future vision of TWC, we are undertaking a significant facility expansion on our existing site — combining two adjacent properties: 7 Waverley St and 6 Harold St. The result will provide a worship sanctuary (450–500 people), an enlarged foyer, kitchen and servery, and three unique spaces for children's ministry, accommodating up to 122 kids.

MIRACULOUS PROVISION:

After 6 years of approaches and rounds of reluctance, the owners of 6 Harold St agreed to sell.

A generous couple purchased the property and are leasing it to us on extremely favourable terms.

The Plan

● Sanctuary — a sacred and reverent space with a mezzanine and courtyard, suitable for weddings and funerals.

● Foyer — a place of connection and hospitality, able to host courses like Alpha and Equipped to Help/Disciple (EHD).

● Toilets — increased capacity to ease congestion at peak times.

● Children's Ministry Rooms (3) — extension with mezzanine and partitioning for flexible use.

Floor Plan

Why are we doing it?

● To make room for more people to encounter Jesus — young and old. We have been beyond our current facility capacity for around three years.

● To have somewhere we can serve and be a presence in our city throughout the week - community meals (Kai on Colombo), local outreach, prayer and counseling space, etc.

● To make room for our growing church whānau — a place for more people to belong. TWC needs to grow larger to pursue our multiplication vision in a healthy and sustainable way.

● To serve our calling to be a Resource Church — providing suitable spaces for raising up pastors, leaders, church planters, and to host network, citywide, and denominational gatherings.

● A church home we can steward for generations still to come.

Why now?

The Problem

We are well beyond the capacity of our current facilities. We currently have 75–80 children under 11 years old on any given Sunday, and they are going off-site to three different locations and far from ideal spaces.

Our sanctuary currently seats 190-200 people, and our CM room holds 20-30 people. Our ‘worshipping community’ consists of 600 people. We cannot grow. Every space — children's ministry, foyer, sanctuary — feels overcrowded, loud, and easily off-putting, meaning we cannot be confident that a person new to church will have a good experience with us. We have increasingly been living into our heart to be a witnessing people, but it has been difficult to invite people to 'come and see' when we are not confident there will be a seat for them.

The Solution

This facility expansion will more than double our current capacity (from 190-200 to 450–500 in the sanctuary and up to 122 kids across three CM spaces). It will feel spacious and welcoming, and let us offer the hospitality we want to. Most importantly, it means our kids come back on-site into beautiful spaces they can make their own.

The urgency

We have been praying and seeking a way forward for the past three years. God has opened this opportunity and provided for us to secure 6 Harold St. To delay would only see construction costs increase and cost us momentum as a church — reducing our ability to grow, which has real implications for our ability to keep raising and sending church plants (our missional imperative).

How much will it cost?

Our initial budget estimate was $3,000,000 before we received any costings. Preliminary costings are now in, and to build the full scope, the budget has increased to $4,200,000.

This increase is due to two main reasons:

(1) the initial estimate was developed before plans were drawn, and (2) the plans include an extension and mezzanine in 7 Waverley to significantly increase the available Children’s Ministry space.

What are we asking you to do?

Goal: raise the remaining $1,000,000 within the next 3 months — ideally before Christmas.

Personally, I’m praying we might raise the full $2,500,000 so we don’t need to take the loan.

Will you please ask God how much you should contribute, and prayerfully consider:

● A one-off gift within the next 3 months, and

● An ongoing gift for the next 3 years (in addition to your regular tithes and offerings).

Jamie and I are doing both — we are not asking anything that we, and our leaders, are not doing ourselves.

Why give? What scripture says about generosity

Three simple postures

● PRAY — ask God how you should respond.

● TRUST GOD — take a faith step.

● PRACTISE GENEROSITY — give as God leads.

Giving generously towards building the house of God is what God's people have always done — throughout Scripture and throughout human history.

Exodus 35–36: Moses asked the people to give supplies for building the tabernacle. The people responded willingly and gave more than was needed.

Haggai 1: The prophet rebukes God's people for living in ‘panelled houses’ while the house of God lies in ruins — a call to reorder our priorities.

Haggai 2: God promises that the glory of this latter house will exceed the glory of the former — our obedience now is met with God's greater purpose ahead.

Luke 21:1–4: Jesus blesses the widow's offering of two small coins. It is not about the amount given, but the heart behind it. I want your heart in this.

Luke 9:10–17: A boy gives what he has — five loaves and two fish — and places it in Jesus' hands. He blesses it and multiplies it. Let's each give what we can, and trust Jesus to bless and multiply it.

What this already looks like

We've already seen the people of God coming together to support this — gifts ranging from $10/week to one-off gifts of $100,000, and engineers and consultants (almost all from our own church) partnering with us commercially: some at usual rates, some at a 10% or 50% discount, and some pro bono.

To everyone who has already given or pledged: thank you, from the bottom of my heart. We are so grateful for your belief in this and your support — we couldn't do this without you. It's beautiful to see the people of God coming together for this. I'd love for you to be part of our collective effort and journey together — will you prayerfully consider how God might have you give?

Please complete this short online form telling us your intentions:

Facility Pledge Form

Donations can be made directly to:

The Well Property Trust

(Registered Charity: CC52236)

38-9017-0152925-00

Frequently asked questions

  • We hope to stay onsite for as long as possible. The 6 Harold St construction can be undertaken and, practically, completed while we continue meeting in 7 Waverley St. That said, yes, we do anticipate a period of time (unsure how long) when we will have to be offsite.

  • No, we would fill the space in one gathering, meaning we wouldn’t have space to grow. So we plan to continue in two worship gatherings, 9am and 11am, giving plenty of space for us to grow. We do hope to meet in one gathering for the period of time we are offsite during construction.

  • We’ll have the same number of car parks as we currently have. We are not required to have any more for consent reasons, though we appreciate it would be nice for practical reasons. There are ample street parking spaces available on weekends, and with the stronger connection via Harold St, we anticipate this will help spread the parking load across both sides of our site - Colombo St and Buchan St.

  • The availability of suitable ministry spaces is really limited in our location - mostly surrounded by light industrial - requiring significant compromises without serious fit-out investment, and we remain at the mercy of landlords.

  • We will have to consider scaling back the extension and mezzanine in the Children’s Ministry spaces. This would reduce costs by ~$600,000 but would also reduce our CM capacity from 122 to 66 children.

  • We hope to submit consent applications in December, so we want to have confidence we have the funds needed for the project to go ahead.

  • No — this is for anyone and everyone... but especially for those who call The Well Church home. The invitation is proportional: give what you can. What matters is the heart behind it, not the amount (Luke 21:1–4).

  • That’s OK - we’re not asking anyone to do something they cannot. A one-off gift alone is a full and valid response; the two-part ask is an invitation, not a requirement. If 3-years feels too long, that’s OK too; simply indicate what you can commit to.