The congregation at a town church has raised a staggering £36,000 over two Sunday services – meaning a major revamp can now go ahead.
The cash was raised following an appeal by leaders at Barnabas Community Church, based at the Barnabas Centre in Longden Coleham.
It will go towards installing cutting edge audio-visual technology and staging, painting throughout and laying new carpets in the main hall of the building, in a project which will cost around £40,000.
The venue is used by around 40 community groups and the new facilities will be available for many of these to use.
And thanks to the incredible generosity of church members, the work will soon get underway.
Around 300 people attend the church for services on Sundays, and church leaders are considering introducing a second Sunday morning service to meet the growing demand.
The centre was previously the Territorial Army Drill Hall and was bought by the church in 1996. Since then around £500,000 has been spent on the building to make it a multi-functional church centre.
Martin Charlesworth, pastor of the Barnabas Community Church which runs the centre, said: “These improvements allow us to develop what we can do with audio visual technology, as well as lighting, staging and a new colour scheme and carpets.
“We always give 10 per cent of what is given at our gift days to work overseas and even after that we still passed £36,000 which was a simply incredible act of generosity, and added to other money set aside it means we can spend £40,000.
“We will benefit on Sundays, as will our Kidz Klub and Youth Group, while the community groups who use the centre during the week will also have access to these new facilities for their meetings, conferences and presentations.”