Community
Christmas and Easter
We had over 1000 people attend both our Christmas and Easter events, across our Wallsend and Marley Hill communities. This was amazing to see and a testament to all of the hard work put in by volunteers across the church.
Refurbishments
In January, we undertook a massive building project with the renovation work on the main hall and side rooms at the Allen. The space has been modernised with a fully equipped with kitchen and kids spaces. Minor works such as painting also took place to freshen up the spaces at Marley Hill Community Centre. Special thanks goes out to all those who contributed to the joining with the father fund to make all this work possible. We are excited to see how the new space will bless our community as we welcome them in.
The Allen main hall before and after
Introduction
What an amazing 12 months, God has been building His church and we have been looking to join in with what He is doing in and through LVC.
We have seen the number of people calling LVC home grow significantly this year and this has been reflected in those gathering on a Sunday.
Our Life Projects have been going from strength to strength with new pantry locations and growing a number of people accessing the support they need.
Our kids and youth ministries are growing and thriving, with our new youth service 'The Hub' giving space for our 12-18's to gather, have fun and build community.
Thank you so much to everyone who served, gave, prayed and contributed to all this and more!
God Bless
David & Nicola Bass (Senior Pastors)
Compassion
Byker Pantry
The Byker Pantry has grown again this year with 249 active members over the last 12 months. Shoppers have saved around £23k on their household bills, purchasing a record total of 47,993 items. Alongside support with low cost food and house hold goods, debt counselling services, from CAP, have been provided to members with 114 sessions received. Members have been supported through house cleaning, moving home, at meetings, and general pastoral care.
Pop Up Pantry
This year the Pop-Up Pantry has grown with now pantries in 6 locations across the region. We have had 608 active members and we helped people save around £30k on their shopping. This project continues to grow as we work with our partners to end food poverty in our region!
Compassion Grassboots
The last financial year has seen the demand for our Grassboots project increase greatly. In partnership with Northumberland FA we have launched our Grassboots website from which people can order low costs shoes and collect them at locations across the region.
We have worked with a range of referral partners from NHS community midwives, schools, social workers, other churches, refugee and asylum charities and many more. The new website has already had 431 unique visits.
We have provided 931 pairs of footwear, and 2995 items of clothing, sports equipment and baby/other items.
We have prevented just over 1.1 metric tonnes of shoes and clothes going to landfill.
Over all our Grassboots project has saved people in the region of
Presence
Intimate worship, song-writing and creativity remain a focal point for our church. At the start of January 2023, we hosted our very first Vineyard Northern Song-writing and Creative Day with over 60 people from churches within our movement and other friends from across the North gathering together. Encouraged by our guest speaker Rich Dicas from KXC London, we worshipped, shared, prayed and celebrated creativity through workshops, song-writing sessions and seminars.
Worship
This year we have been reminded of how important worship is in seeking and resting in the presence of God. Our amazing worship team have continued to lead us wonderfully into the presence of God. Our own home-grown songs have played a key role in this and we have been excited to hear that our songs are being played across the world.
To give you an idea of the impact the songs are having in the last 12 months, on Spotify alone, they have had 2459 streams. That's people using the creativity and vulnerability of the LVC worship team to worship Jesus!
Our home grown worship songs have been used in services in America, Canada, Australia, Benelux, Singapore and New Zealand.
Presence Prayer
In the dream that was given by God to David and Nicola for LVC the first floor was full of prayer.
At LVC we want to see prayer increasing in every part of church life. This year we hosted a 24/7 prayer week and 7 Fireplace sessions in the build up to Lent alongside regular prayer before the services, online and more.
In the build up to Lent we hosted seven Fireplace sessions with extended times of worship and prayer. 110 people attended across the sessions. It was fantastic to see 40 people from various churches gather in South Shields to pray for the region.
The 24/7 prayer week was wonderful. People prayed throughout the day and each evening different people from within LVC and beyond led sessions with a time of worship.
We finished the week with a one church Sunday where we all came to gether to pray for our church, region and world.
Sundays
Over the last 12 months we have had some wonderful gathered times on Sundays with fantastic teaching, worship and a tangible presence of The Holy Spirit. The number of adults and children attending our Sunday morning services have grown by 19% this year and 36% over the last 24 months.
Christmas and Easter
Once again our Christmas services helped us connect with the wider community with many people joining us for our Christingle and Christmas family services as well as our Easter services.
Life kids 1-5's
We have a wonderful 1-5's ministry with with around 60 children aged 1-5 connected to LVC. Most Sundays we will see 20-25 gather to learn about Jesus, worship and have fun.
Over the last 12 months our 1-5's have explored the 'The life they were made for', 'building blocks for life' and so much more.
At each session through worship and prayer our amazing team helps these young people encounter Jesus.
What our kids say about their group.
“I love seeing my friends every time.”
“I like playing with my friends and having snack together.”
“I like ‘What’s In The Box’ and story time with the Bible stories.”
“I like playing with the play dough with my friends!”
Dedications
Over the year we have had the joy of seeing parents dedicate their childrern to The Lord. Parents, Godparents and the wider church family commit to helping babies grow up to walk with Jesus.
Life kids 6-11's
Our 6-11's ministry has grown significantly over the last 12 months. We now have over 80 children aged 6-11 who call LVC home. Most weeks we will see around 25-30 attending our Sunday services.
This year alongside worship, prayer and lots of fun they have explored what it means to be curious about faith, what it means to have a life that overflows with the love and the presence of God and so much more.
What the kids say about their group
“I love seeing my friends and learning about God.”
“I like learning more about God and seeing my friends AND we get to do art - WOO!”
Friendship and Community
We want our young people to make friends and feel part of the wider church community. To make that happen we have facilitated all age services, social events, fun mornings and more to allow our kids to have loads of fun as well as encountering Jesus.
Life Youth
This year our youth ministry at LVC has grown to around 50 young people aged 12 to 18 in the church and we have been able to develop The Hub, a once a month youth service, to help them grow in their faith.
These services have been fantastic with other local Vineyards bringing their youth along too. In March we had an amazing Hub with Zeke from DTI. Over 40 young people from around North East Vineyards gathered and had a wonderful time encountering Jesus and learning about the armour of God.
Dreaming The Impossible (DTI)
Every year we take a group down to DTI our Vineyard national youth festival. Our youth gather with around 4000 from around the UK for a week of worship, teaching, fun and games. It is amazing to see the impact being part of such a large and vibrant event has on our young people.
Train and Equip
It was amazing to be able to host our in-person Beloved conference over the last two years, following two years with it being online. We had brilliant speakers, extended times of worship, prophecy sessions, seminars and a marketplace full of art, clothing and craft. There were around 150 people in attendance at both days. We are looking forward to our next conference on the 6th July 24.
Beloved Leadership Journey
Developing leaders is essential to a growing healthy church. We have continued to develop our 'Leadership Journey' with leaders meetings, the leadership essentials course alongside other resources. We have also looked to support and develop those leading in our church context.
Vineyard Churches UK and Ireland
We are part of a wonderful movement made up of around 140 churches and sites. As a movement we have been able to attend and benefit from a variety of conferences, training events and resources. vineyardchurches.org.uk
Mission
Community Activities
As a church we love creating spaces for people from the local community as well as members of LVC to have fun and make friends.
Across the year we have hosted BBQ's, games nights, pie and quiz evenings, swim parties, light party and more. We have seen member of the pantries, and the local community join us at these events which have been great fun.
The Lamp and Warm Spaces
The Lamp Cafe at Marley Hill continues to go from strength to strength with lots of people coming each week. With soft play and low cost food and drink it is a space that many people from the community value and benefit from.
During the winter we partnered with North Tyneside and Gateshead councils warm spaces campaign inviting more people from the local community to use our buildings and enjoy a free hot drink.
Mission
Noah's Ark
Our Noah's Ark toddler groups are thriving! Most weeks well over 100 adults and kids attending, having loads of fun and making friends. This was what one child minder shared:
"Monday was the second time I've been to the playgroup and it's just amazing... I have experienced going to a lot of playgroups and have been to a lot of early years settings for that matter and this group is a step above."
Free Hot Meals
As part of partnership with North Tyneside Council we have hosted free hot meals since September 23. Thanks to the amazing John and team we have been able to provide well over 700 hot meals to the local community. This has been a great way to build friendships with members of the Wallsend Pop-Up Pantry too.
Baptisms
It is always a joy to baptise people. This year we had two baptism services and had the priviledge of baptising 11 people across both sites.
Our hope and prayer is that in the years to come we will see many more people come to know Jesus and be baptised here at LVC.
Multiplication
South Shields
We are so thrilled that Mike and Jo Sutton will be planting a new church, Beacon Vineyard South Tyneside, in September 2024. Over the last 24 months they have gathered a launch team and have been an amazing blessing to their community. They have been running a regular family fun event with upto 140 people attending. They also had a great beer and caroles evening among many other wonderful activities and events in the last 12 months.
Newcomers & Teams
It has been wonderful to see so many new people joining LVC over the last year. This has helped us grow the different team across the life of the church which has helped us welcome and support even more people. Developing teams is an ongoing journey for us a church family and we pray for even more people to serve in the next 12 months.
sources of income
Thank you to those who have given financially this year to Life Vineyard Church. Regular giving has increased in the last 12 months by 11.5% which is amazing in what has been a challenging financial year. This year we have continued to receive many additional gifts and grants for Life Projects. Your regular giving and additional gifts are vital in enabling us to do what we’ve shared in this report and so much more.
In the last financial year we were awarded some significant grants for Life Projects, spending the remainder of these, alongside higher building renovation and running costs has meant that we have seen a deficit this financial year of around £42600. We do not expect this to be repeated in the coming years.
*Subject to final confirmation in end of year accounts.
categories of spending
At Life Vineyard Church we invest gifts, donations and other income in the mission of seeing the dream become a reality. Our key priorities have been described throughout this report. The pie chart below shows how this income has been invested across our main expenditure catagories.
Life Vineyard Church is the working name of the Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) called Tyneside Vineyard. The CIO has a board of six trustees who meet regularly to ensure we are fully compliant with the Charity Commission. The trustees agree budgets at the start of the year and monthly review both income and expenditure. The trustees also work with the staff team to ensure all of your generous gifts and other grants are invested wisely and effectively.
*subject to final confirmation in end of year accounts
Thank you