Annual Report 2024

In Genesis 26, Isaac re-dug the wells that his father Abraham had originally dug. These wells had been stolen by the Philistines and filled with stones to prevent the Israelites from flourishing in that area. What was once life-giving water for the herds and families had been blocked. It took hard labour to clear the old wells, allowing them to flow again and bring life as they were originally designed to do.

For me, 2024 has felt like Freedom Church returning to full strength. After navigating the trauma of the pandemic in recent years, we’ve had to re-learn how to gather, rebuild teams, lean into God through prayer, and express His love to the lost and lonely. We may have lost some ground and momentum, but our teams have worked hard to unblock and rediscover what we had before.

Now, we are back on solid footing, ready for the challenges ahead. 2024 has been a year of stabilization. As you'll see in the following report, we hit our financial targets, saw an increase in Sunday attendance, welcomed new groups, cultivated a fresh culture of prayer, and reached out to our local community with the love of Jesus.

Is it everything? No. Could we do more? Absolutely!

But before we rush into the future, let’s pause to reflect on all that God has been doing among us this past year and give thanks for His blessing and favour, day by day.

Onwards, in His power and at His pace!

Sundays

Sundays are one of our favourite days of the week! We love gathering with our church family, where people of all ages come together to worship and discover how we can walk in the way of Jesus.

We began the year by re-establishing our vision to help people find and follow Jesus. We then explored Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools, a special time to rediscover the practice of prayer. After that, we delved into the book of Ephesians, asking the question, "What does it mean to be a Household of Faith?"

During the summer, we enjoyed looking at some of the classic parables of Jesus from Matthew 13, exploring what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. In the autumn, we tackled the weighty subject of the book of Romans, embarking on a mountain-climbing adventure through the highs and lows of the Early Church and reflecting on how these lessons shape the way we live out our Christian faith today.

A huge thank you to everyone who served on the various teams that make our Sundays happen. Whether you helped set up chairs and staging, made and transported drinks, led our children, invested in young people, used your musical talents to lead us in worship, managed sound, lighting, and video, streamed online, or prepared and preached God’s Word — your contribution has been immense. Thank you!

Connect Groups
& Pastoral Care

In 2024 we had a wonderful time as a church family. Throughout the year we had an average of 10 Connect Groups, and several interest/activity groups running. There were a few changes within the groups throughout the year – with two Connect Groups coming to an end, but to replace these we had several new groups start too.

We celebrated Chatan & Joy forming “The Mistry group”, Becky Munro forming the ‘Millennial Women’ group, and Joe and Izzy starting a group to encourage and support the developing 20’s demographic in their discipleship and relationships. In addition, Ben Tanton and Mandy Reynolds have taken on leadership of what was historically the warm welcome/board games group, developing it into a new daytime group. The group have the desire to participate in a more diverse menu of activities, such as meals, crafts, jigsaws, movies, and of course games. They are also deliberate in their conversation – chatting about teachings from Sundays, the Bible Project, Alpha and the Chosen TV series.

There have been some great moments this year where connect groups have come together to serve the wider church: running different aspects of the Church Weekend Away programme, working together to cater for events and, providing pastoral care for families and individuals that need a hand, such as organising meal trains. Many groups have also stepped deeper into corporate prayer, utilising the land, or booking out an evening in the prayer room for our week of 24/7 Prayer.

We have also loved running two Alpha courses – with several people making faith commitments and joining our church family because of attending these events.

The lion’s share of pastoral care is carried out by our amazing connect groups. However, we appreciate that not everyone is part of one of those groups for many reasons. Some needs that arise require a different kind of help - or are somewhat nuanced. We have a pastoral oversight team, which handles decision-making, signposting, co-ordinating and recordkeeping. If you have, or become aware of any pastoral needs, and have consent to do so – please get in touch with Community Pastor Ben Tanton or your connect group leader, and we’ll endeavour to make sure you get the right help.

If you would like to know how you can get involved with any of our groups – please have a look at the information on our website or ChurchSuite. You are welcome to get in touch with Ben if you need any help accessing groups or pastoral care and he will be happy to meet and talk it through with you. He can be contacted at ben@freedomchurch.uk

Prayer and Worship

Prayer and worship are at the heart of everything we do at Freedom Church. This year, we were excited to use Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools to deepen our prayer culture. We continue to strengthen our partnership with 24/7 Prayer and the growing number of churches within the Tribe Network, which our Senior Leader Sim Dendy leads alongside Simon Benham.

In 2024, our prayer and worship ministry included a variety of activities and events, such as:

Sunday morning worship services
A week of prayer in October
The development of the prayer room at the Church Weekend Away
The ‘Lectio Hour’ group that continues to meet monthly on Monday afternoons
‘All In,’ our monthly Sunday evening worship and prayer gatherings
The new Press In prayer group, led by Dave and Ruth Gatting
Weekend Retreat at the Greenhouse Christian Centre

Over the past year, we’ve focused on creating more space for prayer, both in our corporate gatherings and in our personal quiet times. Let’s continue to grow in this practice!

The Worship and Production Team have done an incredible job facilitating our prayer and worship spaces. Much of their work is unseen, as they prepare and practice throughout the week to serve faithfully on the weekends. Thank you to all involved — your passion and dedication are vital in ensuring that prayer and worship remain central to the life of Freedom Church.

Kids

2024 was a lovely year for Freedom Kids!

We enjoyed a year of development and growth as we grew in number and introduced Encounter sessions into our regular programme.

The wonderful kids team delivered a variety of sessions throughout the year. We started off the new year diving into the life of Jesus beginning with his birth, then choosing disciples and starting his ministry, all the way through to Easter where the team put on a brilliant interactive Easter experience filled with crafts, eggs, crosses and more! After the Easter fun, we then learned about the Holy Spirit and how our lives can be changed because of what Jesus did for us, what he modelled and what he left us with. 

Freedom Kids then enjoyed the variety of the 6 weeks of all-age Summer Sunday services which gave everyone a chance to be together as a whole church family. 

Finally, we kicked off our Autumn term with the introduction of our ‘Encounter sessions’. These became a place for the kids to worship, encounter the presence of God, learn how to move in the gifts of the spirit and bond as a group with a load of fun new games and crafts to enjoy together.  

Our highlights from 2024 were: 

Family events such as the Good Friday craft morning, and Light Party
The Summer programme which included the Church Weekend Away, a Sunday sports day and a morning on the land with bouncy castles
Prayer week, particularly the family prayer session
Starting Encounter Sessions
Our fantastic Nativity and Christingle service 
Learning more about who we are and God’s love for us.

We are also grateful to the volunteers who have continued to run Freedom Tots this year – our baby and toddler morning at the Centre, and particular thanks to Charlie Baxter who took on leadership of this group in November.

We are so excited about all that 2025 has in store for us as we set our sights on discovering and enhancing our relationship with God and those around us!

Youth

2024 was a great year for Freedom Youth too! We had new volunteers join the team (hooray!); Geoff Niblett and Michael Hughes, alongside Kirill Popov who has been a member of the team for a few years.

Four year-6s joined the group at Easter, with a further two young people coming along to our Tuesday Night Youth towards the end of last year.

We continued to run Sunday morning sessions, and a Tuesday evening connect group throughout the year. We are very grateful for all the members of the church who have helped host us for our mid-week meeting.

Throughout the year, we ran a few youth club sessions at the Freedom Centre which were a specific opportunity for the young people to invite their friends. Some of these friends have continued to attend Tuesday Night Youth regularly which means that we are now too big (!) to continue meeting in houses. So from the beginning of 2025, we will mainly be meeting at the Freedom Centre mid-week

Our highlights from last year were:

Youth Weekend Away in April
Romsey FaithFest event with The Romsey Abbey and Romsey Baptist Church youth groups
Our summer programme including the Church Weekend away and a trip to Thorpe Park
Inviting friends (and them attending!), and youth group growth
Deepening relationships with each other and learning more about God’s love for us

How can you support Freedom Youth this coming year?

Join the Youth team. There are 4 of us juggling it currently so we need more support to run weekly sessions. Please consider if this might be something you can offer.
Cook for the Youth on a Tuesday evening and take it to the Centre.
Pray for our young people to develop deep friendships with one another and a continued desire to love and serve Jesus. 
Pray for our young people’s well-being and support networks.

Speak to Zoe Philips, our Youth Pastor, for more information or email her at  zoe@freedomchurch.uk

Events

We saw the return of the Church Weekend in July 2024. The weekend was full of fun, eating together, and community. We loved having some Freedom Centre clients join us and we celebrated four members of our Freedom Church Family being baptised!

On Sunday the 6th of October, we embarked on a week of 24/7 prayer. It was very special to carve out time to pray and seek God's heart for several different topics; the children and families we work with, our building project, the health and unity of the church across Romsey, current affairs, young people, social justice issues, and the health of the community of Romsey and surrounding villages.

With the support of our volunteers, we created a beautiful prayer space in the upper room at the Centre. Through this focused week of prayer, many of you reported a deeper experience of God’s presence, a revived love for meditating on His word, or simply finding more time for Jesus in your thought lives.

Thank you to those of you who engaged with our Men’s Breakfasts and Ladies’ Events in 2024. The men continue to enjoy good food and fellowship, and our Freedom ladies have had some wonderful creative opportunities thanks to Becky Corcoran Art, culminating in a Christmas Craft Workshop in November.  We look forward to continuing these events throughout this 2025!

Finance

Thank you for your incredible generosity and support of the work at Freedom Church throughout the year. Through your faithful tithing, donations, and grants to the Freedom Centre, we received an income of just over £380,000.

We are pleased to report that we saw a small profit of around £3000 for the year, so slightly higher than the budgeted loss for the year of £1,157. Staffing costs remain our biggest outgoing, followed by rent costs associated with hiring the Romsey School every Sunday and leasing the Freedom Centre.

If you would like to receive a more detailed set of accounts, please contact Sarah Gay, our Finance Manager, at finance@freedomchurch.uk

As part of our commitment to being a generous church, we give grants through our Freedom Fund. In 2024, we were able to distribute £16,500 to support people locally and across the globe:

£5,000 was given overseas to three roofing projects in Zimbabwe, Hope Lebedyn in Ukraine, and Heart of the Father in the Philippines, as well as supporting teachers at Wobulenzi Town Academy in Uganda.
£1,000 to the work of 24-7 Prayer.
£2,500 locally to provide laptops for the CLEAR project (working with refugees) and support for Baby Necessities and Young Carers.
£6,000 to provide white goods, energy top-ups, and food vouchers for those facing hardship.
£2,000 to support Church Partners in Uganda and Papua New Guinea, and to assist students at Moorlands and Westminster Theological Colleges.

If you would like to start giving regularly or adjust your current giving, please visit our website or email finance@freedomchurch.uk You can choose to give a regular monthly amount or make a one-off donation.

Your generous and regular giving truly makes a difference. Thank you!

Freedom Centre Programme

We had a great year in 2024 building on the work of previous years. So we are still purposefully choosing to refine and get better at what we already do, rather than significantly expand the work of the Centre itself. This has still resulted in some changes, including launching our new community fridge project at the Freedom Centre, as well as the employment of a foodbank manager for the North Baddesley distribution site.

However, overall, we have just continued investing in our main projects:

Christians Against Poverty (CAP) Debt Centre and Money Coaching Courses
Employment Support Project (including the DWP JobCentre drop-in)
Community Coaching Programme
Mentoring in schools with Transforming Lives for Good (TLG)
Romsey Foodbank Project with Trussell

We are so grateful for the amazing team of staff and volunteers who all work so hard to help deliver the Freedom Centre programme. Please read our full report for more detailed updates from each of the main projects. We also launched a new information pack this year giving more detail about each of the projects we run and how they can be accessed.

Every year we are blown away by the generosity of our local community – individuals and organisations who continue to support our work in various ways. So, a big thank you always to all those that partner with us in delivering the aim of the Centre – providing support in times of crisis; encouraging, enabling and equipping people to become ‘unstuck’ where they are ‘stuck’. The dream is to see people ultimately reconnect with their purpose and find hope. We have been blessed to witness this many times this year – and pray that this will continue into 2025.

Click here for more details about the Freedom Centre Programme generally, or feel free to get in touch with our Centre Manager Beth at beth@freedomchurch.uk with any queries.

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