Couple who transformed church take sabbatical after nine years service

A COUPLE who took over the running of a church in Peppard to help develop its links with the community have left after nine years.

Kevin and Linsey Potter, who were co-ministers at Springwater Church, are now on a three-month sabbatical while they decide what to do next.

The couple moved to Peppard to work at the Church in 2016 after leaving Los Angeles.

Mr Potter had worked with Oasis USA in establishing safe communities for people impacted by human trafficking and Mrs Potter studied for two masters degrees at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Since joining the church, Mr and Mrs Potter established a variety of community programmes as well as collaborations with an environmental charity.

Mr Potter said: “The church was partly isolated when we started in that it was more of a mainstream church. We were asked initially to come in to help it engage the community. The church has gone through that transformation now and it is now a significant part of the community and Sunday morning is just one part of a number of things that Springwater is now involved with.

“We worked with the community to find out what their passions were and what God had put inside them because we believe the church here is not here by accident but to be a blessing to the area where it is.”

Mr Potter said that from engaging the community, the church was able to implement a variety of social programmes, including Compassionate Loaf, a breadmaking group which has travelled to India and Romania to work with marginalised people to set up bakeries and other social enterprises.

He said: “There are always challenges in community development. We’ve noticed that when we were in India, in Mexico and in America but when you work together as a community you are able to overcome those challenges and, of course, we believe in the power and presence of the holy spirit guiding and leading us.

“One of the other things we’ve developed here is the relationship between the churches in the area, we work together at a congregation level. Coming out of the Women’s World Day of Prayer we started having a supper.

“We’d have meals around different churches and people would connect together and interconnect together, so the congregations in the area started to rub shoulders and become friends, so that had a big impact .

“We also have people engaging in small groups with women, then folks engaged with mothers and toddlers’ groups and that developed and strengthened. Then we had the food bank as well as the life skills program and warm spaces.”

Mrs Potter said that the pair felt “excited” by the changes instilled in the church which has led to an increase in members of the congregation becoming involved in local initiatives.

She said: “One of our good connections came with the charity shop in the village, there was a lady volunteering there and a couple more of us joined her and that was just a great start for really good conversation about our faith and the church.”

The couple also re-introduced a foodbank, which supports 51 local families, which is run by 45 volunteers. Mrs Potter added: “We don’t like the fact that there has to be a foodbank obviously, but the whole village and around has embraced this so beautifully.

The couple are undecided on where they will go next but will visit their son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren in America.

Mrs Potter added: “We’ve never owned a house, so we don’t have money to invest in a property which means it is a big faith venture for us, we’re trusting that the God that has always provided us housing for 30 years will continue to do the same, but it also means that we don’t know exactly where it will be.”