Church grew out of taxing time

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.

While 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!’”

THIS ISN'T THE END OF THE STORY!

Read the whole article in context in the June 2024 issue of Direction Magazine.

Direction Magazine

Direction is the official monthly publication of the Elim Pentecostal Churches in the UK, and is packed with all Elim's latest news, inspiration, vision and teaching. Find the latest edition and many back issues of Direction here.