Hope rising in hartlepool as new church finds its feet
Since summer 2023 evangelist Sarah Weaver has been on a mission to launch New Springs City Church Hartlepool. How has she got on?
Summer 2023
New Springs City Church Hartlepool started out as something of a detective mission for Sarah Weaver. Tasked by New Springs City Church Loughborough to scope out a site for a potential new congregation, she spent the summer driving up to Hartlepool every Tuesday and Wednesday. She sought God’s guidance as she explored the area and responded as He led her into conversations with locals.
“I was struck by how open people were to talk about Jesus as we chatted, and how from that I started to see people say yes to Him and follow Him,” she says.
September 2023
“I asked God, ‘Where do You want me to start?’ and it all began with a toddler group,” says Sarah. “I felt it was important to love the community and serve them before I did anything else.”
The tots group sparked great conversations but its venue was an issue. The heating was broken and Sarah had to leave home at 5am to set equipment up singlehandedly.
“I asked on Facebook if anyone knew somewhere else we could meet. A lady called Michelle from a play centre called Make Believe, two minutes away, said we could go there.
“It was fantastic because it was already set up, we were supporting a local business, and Michelle is the best connected person ever!”
The toddler group was soon packed to the rafters and Sarah had to cap numbers at 30 families.
“We were able to chat and pray with people and it opened the door to begin an expression of church.”
December 2023
Christmas provided a great opportunity to do just that.
“I have some friends in a brass band so they came and we put on carols in a pub,” says Sarah. “We had around 18 people and our friends from Make Believe came – it’s created life-long friendships.”
God also opened doors into schools.
“I had the idea to call Ward Jackson Primary School and ask if I could do a Christingle service. The head is a Christian and he welcomed me straight in.”
Winter/Spring 2024
This led to Sarah running a coffee-and-cake space for a term and launching a Tuesday night meeting at Make Believe.
It was a tough time, though, because her son Josh had just been diagnosed with testicular cancer.
“I was launching the Tuesday church while also travelling up and down because I didn’t want to be away from him. I look back now and think I could only do it by the grace of God.”
She continued to build community connections via activities like Messy Church and meeting people on a local estate.
“We hosted The Message bus there in November and people were like, ‘No one’s ever done anything here before!’”
Summer/Autumn 2024
Sarah felt God nudging her to organise a Sunday church. She was still living in Loughborough and on team at New Springs City Church Loughborough. They released her in September to concentrate on Hartlepool.
A new hour-long 4.30pm Sunday service was launched at Ward Jackson School, with worship, teaching and fellowship.
“It began with me, my brother-in-law Nathan – who is pastor of New Springs – a dad and his son from the estate and a family of five from the school. We were aware that many of the people we were connecting with had no previous experience of church.”
Winter/Spring 2025
“Throughout 2025 we grew and baptised six people,” Sarah says. “We moved to a bigger space in the school and advertised our Sunday church on Facebook, welcoming people to join us.”
With this, however, came a backlash on social media. Discovering a darker reality of church planting, Sarah describes ‘keyboard warriors’ attacking her personally; their threatening posts telling her to leave and accusing her of hate-preaching and brainwashing.
“It did some damage but we kept going and people started to come,” she says.
“We now have a church of 25-30 and most of them have been saved since joining. Others have come after time away from church or because they were new to the area.”
Summer 2025
As the congregation has grown so too has Sarah’s work in three local schools, where she runs a prayer space, a space for youth to talk about faith and has provided food hampers for schools to give to families in need.
“One deputy head of a non-faith school asked if I’d do an assembly. I said yes, but was she OK with me sharing Jesus? She was fine, so now I go in every month and get to start their School Family Value from a Christian perspective – sharing Bible stories, telling them about Jesus and praying over the 400 children there.”
September 2025
This month was all-change for Sarah and her two sons, Josh and Zach.
“In one week I took Josh to university in Bath, moved up to Hartlepool full-time and Zach got accepted for his ministry training, based at our Loughborough church.”
With the family in three different locations it’s the first time they’ve lived apart and it’s been a huge adjustment for Sarah.
October 2025
The importance of being in Hartlepool really struck home for Sarah when a member of the congregation, Scott, died suddenly.
“He’d come to know Jesus earlier that year and we’d baptised him in the summer.
“It’s been an honour to support his family and keep sharing the love of Jesus with them.”
December 2025
An amazing door opened when the church’s offer to run a free present-wrapping service in the shopping centre was accepted.
“I thought I’d just push a door so I emailed the manager saying we wanted to serve the community and was there anything we could do over Christmas? He invited us in on the busiest Saturday in December – the first weekend of their grotto. He said we could promote the church and he’d do all our advertising.
“Then he said we needed to start thinking about Easter too because there must be something we can do together.”
Looking ahead in 2026
Sarah’s role as an evangelist within New Springs UK (which has funded her and the new church) is to plant and establish churches.
This means she was only ever set to be in Hartlepool for one year and her focus now is readying the church for her departure in August.
Right now it’s about recognising the gold in the congregation, she says; looking at who God is raising up, then training, equipping and releasing them into whatever He has for them.
“We’ve just started our kids and youth work because I want to create runways, no matter how raw they look, so we’re ready for growth for when it comes. I want to build good foundations so the next minister can take things further.
“I want there to be a good DNA – the kind of DNA that runs through the veins of New Springs and Elim.
“We’re looking to be a church that is generous, full of Jesus, moving in the things of the Holy Spirit, outward-looking, reaching the community with the gospel and looking after one another.”
This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.