Join us for a new family service at St John’s at 4pm on the first Sunday of each month, starting on September 4.
There will be a simple service with activities, stories and music, followed by sandwiches, cake and drinks. Everyone welcome!
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Come to our Autumn Fayre!
Saturday, September 3rd, 12-4pm
Join us at our Autumn Fayre at St John’s Church, Hale, on Saturday, September 3rd, from 12-4pm.
There will be stalls, games, food and drink – a barbecue, bar, tea and cakes – a grand raffle with loads of prizes, and music. The fayre will be opened by Cllr Alan Earwaker, Mayor of Farnham, at 12pm.
Come and browse the stalls – everything from crafts to a bottle tombola – play games, eat, drink and be merry while listening to music by local musicians.
Buy a lucky programme and be in with a chance of winning a £50 voucher for Heaven’s Kitchen restaurant; buy a raffle ticket and you could win £100, or a host of other prizes; browse gifts on the stalls; eat delicious cake or a burger; have a drink, and know that you are helping to raise money to support the church’s work in the community, including the setting up of a new youth hub at St John’s.
Join us from 12pm, Saturday, September 3rd.
And if any community group, local business or craftsperson would like a stall, please message us here or admin@badshotleaandhale.org
Consultation on plans for changes to Farnham
Have your say on the future of Farnham
The changes are proposed as part of the Farnham Infrastructure Programme, a partnership between Surrey County Council, Waverley Borough Council, Farnham Town Council and Jeremy Hunt MP and the plan is to “reduce carbon emissions, improve the connections between the town’s communities, support economic vitality and encourage growth, and improve life in Farnham with cleaner air, healthier lifestyles and less dominance of traffic on communities”. However, there are questions over how this is done and what impact it will have on other parts of Farnham so a consultation is underway.
As North Farnham is likely to be affected if the proposals go ahead, residents are being encouraged to complete the consultation. This is online here and there will be hard copies available at the exhibitions. There are also hard copies available at the Farnham Town Council offices on South Street.
The consultation it runs until September 11th, but with an extension into early October to allow time to go into the schools at the start of next term.
To find out more follows North Farnham Voice on Facebook and visit https://farnhaminfrastructure.commonplace.is
Pride services across the parish
On Sunday, August 21, we are celebrating Pride at all of our three churches and online, here on the website.
Our services are just six days before Pride in Surrey which takes place in Camberley on August 27. Both Pride in Surrey and our Pride services are an opportunity to celebrate LGBTQI+ people in their fullness, to look back on strides toward equality, and to imagine a world where celebration and full inclusion is the norm, not an exception.
Rev’d Stella Wiseman, a minister in the parish and Inclusive Church Ambassador for Surrey, explains some of the thinking behind this: “The Christian response to LGBTQI+ people has not generally been one of welcome – far from it sadly – and unsurprisingly the Church as a whole has not felt like a safe space for many people. In fact, Christians have used the Bible as a weapon and the church has contributed to the political, relational and spiritual dehumanizing of LGBTQI+ people.
“Our support for Pride is not just a way of saying sorry for the Church’s harmful actions – some of which have led to the death of some of God’s beloved children – but also an opportunity to denounce oppressive practices and ideology while also becoming more fully human ourselves. For when we dehumanise others we reduce our own humanity.
“In these services we repent of the past and we look with hope to the future. We stand with people who identify as LGBTQI+ and proclaim loudly that all people are loved by God and all people are welcome here. God is Love and we are all fearfully and wonderfully made.”
There will be special prayers and readings and invited speakers at all the services. Among those we will be welcoming are Merinda D’Aprano, published author, poet, spiritual director, preacher and retired headteacher; Ash Brockwell, an artist, poet, writer and lecturer; singer and artist Heather Golding; and Suzanne and Declan DeWitt Hall from Where True Love Is, who will take part in our online service
Please join us on Sunday, August 21. There is a service at St John’s Church, Lower Hale, at 9.30am, one at St George’s, Badshot Lea, at 10am, and one at St Mark’s, Upper Hale, at 11am. And, of course, we are online too: https://badshotleaandhale.org/online-services/
Members of the parish will also be at Pride in Surrey, both in the Pride parade and at the Christians at Pride stall.
Free Family Fun Day
Join us for a FREE family fun day on Friday, August 19th, 10am-1pm, at St Mark’s Church, Upper Hale (next to Tesco Express).
Free lunch provided, plus music, craft, table tennis and a chance for parents to relax and chat. Everyone welcome.
You can find out more by messaging us here or emailing Michelle – youth@badshotleaandhale.org
See you there!
And yet… a story of ordination
Stella’s story
Well, it has happened. After a process lasting several years. I was ordained as a deacon at Guildford Cathedral by Rt Rev’d Jo Bailey Wells, Bishop of Dorking, on July 3rd.
This is both the culmination of a long time of discernment (the process of talking , thinking, praying about whether I had been called to be a minister in the Church of England), followed by study (more talking, thinking, praying and some writing too), and the beginning of new phase as I become a curate in the parish. This means a lot more learning, both on study days and on the job – learning to take services, including funerals, preaching more, being involved in pastoral care and the like – as well as doing my admin and communications job. As an Ordained Local Minister I don’t receive an income so need to carry on working.
Those are the bald facts, but behind these everything is slightly less fixed. It often is when we are trying to follow God. The path to this point has been winding, with hints of it many years ago, and if there had been women priests around in those days I might have started the process earlier. Then again, that might have been the wrong stage in my life as I have changed a great deal since then. I was pretty certain that the theology I heard preached in the churches I frequented then had to be true and it was only my lack of faith and discipline that caused me to doubt. Even as I delved deeper into faith I thought that I could somehow know the truth about God, could squeeze God into a box and then all I had to do was obey.
As you have probably guessed, it didn’t work out that way, and God somehow wouldn’t fit into a box or even a list of beliefs that I could tick off. The more I grasped at God and thought I had it sorted, the more God slipped through my fingers.
And yet. There is always an ‘and yet’. God is the ‘and yet’, the presence who can’t be grasped but is somehow here, around us, sustaining us, shining light through the cracks in our lives, piercing the darkness. Over the past few years I have become more at ease with the idea that there will not be clear answers on this side of death at least, but that this is OK.
I wish, in many ways, I could give you clear answers, ones you could tick off. I know how long I sought them. But if I gave you those answers you would probably find 100 reasons why they didn’t work for you, or maybe you’d tie yourselves in knots trying to accept them in the way you think you should, regardless of whether that was what I meant. I’ve been there.
I am more content these days to know that I won’t know everything, that I can’t define God. God continues to be more than the answers, more than a set of doctrines, more than orthodoxy. God continues to be, well, God, the source of being and of love, lifegiving and creative, extraordinary but rooted in the ordinary, rooted in community, in our relationships with each other.
One of my favourite stories from the New Testament is that of the two disciples who, after the death of their master, Jesus, were walking to Emmaus (Luke 24:13–32) and hadn’t heard about the resurrection of that same master. Jesus, the risen Christ – the Messiah – walked with them and explained what was said about the Messiah in the Hebrew Scriptures (what we now call the Old Testament) and how he would suffer and then ‘enter into his glory’. They still didn’t know that he was talking about himself and it wasn’t until he was with them for a meal and took the bread and broke it that they recognised him. Then, just as they would have asked him a stack of questions, he disappeared.
How frustrating, and yet… And yet they knew him deep within, for they said that their hearts burned within them as they walked and talked with him. They knew on a deep visceral level and they recognised him in a simple, shared act of a meal together. After that meal, their lives could never be the same again.
God for me is found in mystery but is also found rooted in the everyday, in community, in simple, embodied acts, in what we do together as a church. That is something we all work out together and I look forward to doing so with you more and more.
Stella Wiseman
Pictured top: Stella (centre), family, friends and Bishop Jo (far right).
Your July/August magazine is out!
Your July/August magazine is here, filled with Ordination news, the Fete, information about what is going on in the parish, reflections, an article about the pop-up museum exhibition at St Mark’s, changes to the craft market, pride services, news from our local MP, prayer, new advertisers.
Enjoy reading and please let us have your articles and news. Email editor@badshotleaandhale.org
Our Untold Stories
An exhibition about three communities
Everywhere we go, the people we live and move among have their own stories. These will be influenced by, and overlap with, the stories of different communities.
This area is no exception and St Mark’s Church is hosting an exhibition about three communities until July 15. The exhibition will then move to the Museum of Farnham, which has co-curated this, on July 26 where it will remain until December.
Reflecting on 60 years: Our Untold Stories is an interactive exhibition which introduces us to the Ahmadiyya Muslim, the history of Hale and the Polish community in the area. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Organisation, the Hale History Project and the Polish School of Surrey worked with the museum to create a pop-up exhibition about each community’s stories, their origins and specific purposes and provide insight in to the development of local areas.
The exhibition is open at St Mark’s at the following times: Thursday to Sunday, 10am to 1pm, until July 15.
Join the procession!
Join the Hale Carnival procession this Saturday (July 2nd), at 6pm.
Whether you are a group, a club, a business, a family, or just someone who likes to dress up, why not join in the fun and process through Hale from 6pm. Contact the carnival team at hale-carnival@hotmail.co.uk and they will give you all the details.
Have a Messy Pentecost!
Come and enjoy Messy Church at St Mark’s on Thursday, 16th, 3.30-5.15pm, and find out all about Pentecost. There’s hot food for all, games, craft, and a lot of fun. It’s for the whole family but children must be supervised.
Want to know more? Message Michelle.
The Parish of Badshot Lea and Hale 