How church grew out of a taxing situation!
What do you do when you feel God tell you to sow money into a roundabout? Pastors Mike and Heather Dyce and Tim Dunnington tell the intriguing story of establishing Gracemead Church in Hatfield
Tim Dunnington fancied a Mars bar before his prayer walk. He expected to buy it with the £1 coin in his pocket. What he didn’t expect was that God would tell him to plant his coin in a roundabout instead.
This was just one in a series of unusual steps that led to Gracemead Church becoming the Hatfield community hub it is today.
Gracemead’s journey to establishing its town-centre home started way before this. Driving home from a conference in 1999, Tim told his pastor Heather Dyce about a recent dream.
“I saw a church on a certain roundabout in Hatfield,” he told her.
“As Heather and I approached a roundabout in Hatfield it looked exactly like the one in my dream, but in the natural it was impossible – there was no space for a church with the roundabout being flanked by a tall block of flats, an Asda store and the local tax office.
“Heather told me to keep listening to God and we’d see what happened.”
All went quiet. Then a decade later, the church was outgrowing its building and was looking for a new location which would make it more visible in the town.
Whi le shopping in Asda, Heather looked out of the doors and saw light falling on the old tax office opposite.
“It fell in such a way that it felt like glory was coming out of the building,” she says. “We’d already rejected the idea of buying an old cinema for £1m and I knew the tax office cost £1.2m, which we definitely couldn’t afford, but I felt God say, ‘Why can’t you afford it? Push the door and see what happens!’”
Here, we return to Tim’s prayer walk of around the same time – during which he planned to pray over the building issue. “I had two £1 coins and wanted a Mars bar, but felt God say, ‘No, I’ve got another plan for that coin’,” Tim says.
“He challenged me to prophetically sow it in the ground at a building we were considering purchasing – as an act of sowing into our vision to advance God’s Kingdom in Hatfield.”
Tim planted his coin and carried on. In time, he reached the roundabout next to Gracemead. “I felt God speak to me: ‘Do you remember the dream you had about a church on this roundabout? Now, I want you to sow your other £1 coin on it.’”
Tim did as he was told.
All became clear a week later at a leadership meeting where the team was told another building had come onto the market.
“It was the tax office!” says Tim.
“It was the building where I’d planted my £1 and that Heather had seen lit up from Asda.
“What’s more, it was the building where our pastor Mike first worked when he moved here with HMRC from Scotland back in 1984!” While Mike, Heather and Tim remain in awe of how God supplied the finances for the 12,500sq ft building, they wasted no time in establishing a community hub that today plays an invaluable role in Hatfield.
Church building being well used by community
Youth work is central to Gracemead and its congregation of 75 adults and 60 youth and children.
Tim describes a mix of Friday evening connect groups for teenagers and children’s work on Sundays for 4-7s, 7-11s and 12-18s.
“Some of our youth became Christians and we baptised nine together last year,” he says. Parents are also offered encouragement via a connect group, where experiences and advice on everything from social media and choosing secondary schools is shared. There are also connect groups for the guys and also ladies.
The building is used by an array of community groups too.
“We’re a charity hub, with Herts Young Homeless and Welwyn Hatfield Community & Voluntary Service renting space full-time. Other groups, including a women’s refuge, rent rooms throughout the week,” says Mike. “That income means we’re just two years from paying our mortgage off.”
Heather adds that the church’s food bank supports around 90 households a week, with strong connections being built with Tesco and Asda as a result.
“It’s great because we wanted to be where we are so we’d be right in the heart of our community,” she says. “There are times when people need help. I love that they know they can come to Gracemead to get it.” With Gracemead’s church and community work well established, the leadership team are preparing for the future.
Mike – a bi-vocational pastor still working for HMRC – and Heather are looking to retire.
They haven’t had to look far for their successor. Tim, working bi-vocationally as an engineer while completing his training as an Elim minister, is preparing to become senior pastor.
“Tim has been with us since he was 19 and the congregation love him,” says Mike. “He helps lead Sunday services and prepares rotas and preaching topics. He supports emerging leaders too.
“Succession planning is so good when you’re working with someone who already has your DNA.”
It means, they agree, that Gracemead can continue its role as a welcoming and supportive community church.
“If we ask people what we’re about they all say the same thing ,” says Heather. “There’s no judgment, there’s love. Gracemead feels like family and a safe place.”
Mission-hearted in Romania
Heather has long been passionate about missions. For more than 20 years she has actively worked with mission partners to support disadvantaged families in Romania.
A key part of these trips has been helping parents of children with disabilities.
“There’s one family who have three children with microcephaly – where the brain doesn’t grow properly,” she says.
“They say it’s a lifeline being connected to our church and knowing there are people who love and care for them when some of their near family would rather cross the road than talk to them.”
She has long taken young people on mission, and one trip stands out in particular.
“I took a team of students with autism or cerebral palsy who wanted to do their Duke of Edinburgh gold awards. They came with their teachers and had the most amazing time. It really encouraged the Romanian parents who saw children with disabilities able to join in and do so much.”
Heather also helps a couple in Romania who are global partners with Elim. She was thrilled to attend the wedding of a boy they had fostered and is now looking to send teams from Gracemead to support their work still further.
This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.
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