Welcome Course Coming To Bracknell
We’re really excited to announce we will be launching our first ever Welcome Course at our Bracknell site this October!
The Welcome Course, created by Welcome Churches, is a free, friendly course for people who are new to the UK. It’s designed to help people make friends, practice conversational English, learn a little more about life in the UK and, most importantly, feel welcomed and connected in their local community. But for us, it’s about much more than simply giving people information. It’s about people, relationships and belonging.
Learning from others
Over the summer, a few of us had the privilege of visiting our friends at Wokingham Baptist Church, who have been running the Welcome Course for the past couple of years. We joined one of their sessions, chatted with their volunteers, and heard some of the stories of people who had come along. What struck us most was the lovely, relaxed atmosphere they had created. People were chatting, laughing, asking questions and making connections. It felt like somewhere you could walk into not knowing anyone and very quickly feel at home.
We came away inspired, full of ideas and even more excited about bringing the course to Bracknell. We’re so grateful to the team at Wokingham Baptist Church for being so generous with their time, experience, and all the things they’ve learnt along the way.
Our visit to Wokingham Baptist Church - learning from those ahead of us.
So, what will the Welcome Course look like?
We’ll be starting on Thursday 1st October, meeting every Thursday for 9 weeks from 10 am–12 noon in our K2 building, Kerith Community Church, Bracknell.
There’ll be refreshments (typically British, of course!), plenty of conversation, videos, quizzes and discussions, as well as practical information about living in the UK. We’ll cover things like British culture, making friends, wellbeing, solving some of the practical challenges of settling somewhere new, and getting involved in the local community. There’ll also be language support available, and plenty of opportunity to practice English in a relaxed environment.
But we really don’t want this to feel like going back to school! The content is helpful, but the relationships are the really important bit. We want to create a space where people can ask questions without feeling silly, meet others, share their own experiences, and hopefully make some new friends along the way.
Everyone who walks through our doors will come with their own story, culture, experiences, faith and traditions. We’re not welcoming a particular ‘type’ of person – we’re welcoming individuals.
One of the things we’ve talked about a lot with our volunteer team is simply: ask, don’t assume. We want to listen well, be curious, learn from one another, and offer the kind of hospitality where people know they are genuinely welcome - no strings attached.
And for us as a church, that hospitality comes straight from the example of Jesus. HE consistently noticed people, made space for them, and welcomed those others might have overlooked. In Matthew 25, He says, “I was a stranger, and you welcomed me,” reminding us that the way we welcome and care for others really matters. That’s the kind of hospitality we want people to experience through the Welcome Course.
Of course, our greatest hope is that every person would ultimately come to know Jesus for themselves. BUT we know that changing hearts isn’t our job – that belongs to God. Our part is much simpler: to pray, to love people exactly where they are, and to create a space where people might experience something of Jesus through us.
There’s a well-known quote we often use in Revive: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
Every warm welcome, patient conversation, cup of tea, listening ear, and act of kindness matters. We have the privilege of being Jesus’ hands and feet and following His example of welcoming the stranger. We may never know the full impact of something as simple as making someone feel genuinely welcome – but we can trust God with the rest.
Launching the course in Bracknell will also give us a great opportunity to learn – to see what works well, listen to our guests and volunteers, and make changes as we go. If all goes well, it will equip us with the experience, resources and confidence to potentially run the Welcome Course at some of our other sites in the future - where there is a need and where we feel God is leading us, of course. For now though, we’re excited to start in Bracknell, learn together and see what God does!
We’re not doing this alone
We are so grateful for the support of Bracknell Forest Council. Through some of the relationships we’ve built locally, they’ll be helping us spread the word amongst people who are new to the UK that they’re already working alongside.
And, of course, as with so much of what we do at Kerith, none of this could happen without our brilliant volunteers!
We already have a lovely team getting ready to welcome people, make tea and coffee, facilitate conversations, help with language, and pray for everyone who comes through the doors. There’s still room for more though!
You don’t need to be an expert. If you’re available on Thursday mornings, enjoy meeting people, you’re a good listener, are a bit of a whiz with tech, or simply have a heart to help someone else feel a little more at home, we’d love to hear from you - ‘Contact Us’, and we’ll get back in touch with you.
Please help us spread the word!
Have a think about the people you already know. Is there someone in your workplace, neighbourhood, school community, friendship group or wider circle who is new to the UK?
Tell them about it OR better still, personally invite them.
Share our social media posts, check out or pass on our Welcome Course Webpage or simply let them know they’d be really welcome to just come along. They don’t even need to come alone – they can bring a friend or family member with them too!
Perhaps you’re new to the UK yourself and would love to make some new friends, practice your English, learn a little more about life in the UK and feel more connected to your local community. If so, we’d love you to come along!
And there’s no time limit on what we mean by ‘new’. Whether you’ve been in the UK for a few weeks, several years, or somewhere in between, you are very welcome. Come on your own, bring a friend or family member – we’d simply love to meet you.
As we’ve prepared for the course, we’ve kept coming back to one simple thought: people may not remember everything we share, but they’ll remember how we made them feel. Our hope and prayer is that from the moment someone arrives, they feel seen, valued and welcomed. That they experience kindness and dignity. That friendships begin to form. And that, little by little, Bracknell starts to feel a bit more like home.
We genuinely can’t wait to see what comes from this first Welcome Course – the conversations, friendships and stories we don’t even know about yet.
AND we love that, as a church, we get to play a small part in showing the kind of generous, open-hearted hospitality Jesus calls us to – and saying to people who are finding their feet in a new country: You’re welcome here. There’s a place for you. Come and join us.