As St John’s Church turns 175 this year, we are launching a major improvement and fundraising project and want to know what facilities you would like the church to offer.
Residents and local organisations are invited to complete a short survey to help us learn more about what our community needs and how the church can better provide this. It can be found by clicking here.
Join in the fun of a Beetle Drive, beginning at 6:30pm with fish and chips (bring your own drink), at St George’s Church, Badshot Lea, on Saturday, January 19.
Games start promptly at 7.15pm.
A Beetle Drive involves several tables with players, each of whom takes turns to roll a die to try to collect parts of a beetle, which are either pre-drawn or which players draw themselves. To start collecting each player must roll a six which represents the beetle’s body. After that they may start adding parts with each number on the die representing a part of the body. Once a player has a complete beetle they shout ‘beetle’ and the game stops. The person on each table with the most nearly complete beetle moves to a table clockwise round the room while the player who has collected the fewest parts moves anti-clockwise and the game begins again.
Tickets are £8 each and must be bought by Wednesday (January 16). To buy them, contact Carol Le Page 07798 640815.
If you want to grow in your Christian faith, discover more about following Jesus and find out more about being a committed member of the church, then maybe it’s time for ‘Moving On’.
We are running a series of sessions at the Rectory between now and Easter considering some of the aspects of faith and how we live it out. Each session lasts roughly 90 minutes and involves watching a ‘Moving On’ video, followed by time to talk, listen and ask questions. The sessions are all on Thursday evenings at the Rectory starting at 7.30pm.
The first one is on January 17 when we will consider ‘What does it mean to be a disciple?’, followed by ‘What is the point of church?’ on January 31, and ‘Why do we do the things we do at church?’ on February 7. In subsequent weeks we will look at prayer, the Creed, the Holy Spirit, why bad things happen, giving, and putting God at the centre of our lives.
To find out more, contact Lesley on 01252 820537 or email revd.lesley@badshotleaandhale.org
Everyone is invited to a Rainbow Epiphany Eucharist at St Mary’s Church, Quarry Street, Guildford, this Thursday (January 10).
The service, which begins at 7.30pm, will be an ecumenical Eucharist to celebrate and give thanks for the gifts and talents of and offered by the LGBTI+ community. Everyone is welcome, including friends and allies.
This is the second Rainbow Eucharist to be held at St Mary’s specifically to welcome and celebrate LGBTI+ people, and here in Badshot Lea and Hale we have been instrumental in setting up the series. On Thursday, Dave and Helena Walker, who worship at St Mark’s, will be leading an artistic element in the service with the help of Stella Wiseman who is on the Rainbow services steering group.
We are part of this, not just because the Rainbow services are uplifiting, celebratory and welcoming, but because of our commitment to inclusion. The parish belongs to Inclusive Church and seeks to include everyone whatever our economic status, gender, mental health, physical ability, race or sexuality.
The service will begin at 7.30pm and will end with refreshments, including rather good cake!
To find out more, email Stella Wiseman: news@badshotleaandhale.org, or contact Holy Trinity, Guildford: office@holytrinityguildford.org or 01483 567716.
We are nearly there! ‘Emily,’ the pipe organ at St Mark’s Church, Upper Hale, is in need of a thorough overhaul – at 106 years old she is showing her age. We need £23,000 to mend her and we are almost there – just £559 to go!
The money has been raised by the generosity of local people, the hard work of fundraisers and those who have put on and taken part in events, as well as funds from grant-giving bodies. Some people have sponsored pipes, others have made donations at concerts, sung, produced art, recited poetry, made cakes, bought cakes, even constructed a model organ and pushed it round two carnivals! Thank you everyone for what you have done.
We are now appealing for the last little bit so that work can begin this year. One easy way is by sponsoring a pipe. Pipes can be sponsored anonymously or not, and if you sponsor a pipe you can dedicate it to a loved one. You will receive a certificate and the church will display all the names and notes that all the sponsors write on a ‘Sponsoring a Pipe’ manuscript. There will be a celebratory concert once ‘Emily’ has been restored to which all those who have sponsored a pipe will be invited.
Rev’d Lesley Crawley from St Mark’s said: “Emily is a beautiful Edwardian pipe organ which is over 100 years old. She is referred to as ‘Emily’ after her benefactor – Emily Mangles. Sadly, she has been used very rarely over the past six years because, after a century of service, she is in need of a complete overhaul. Once she is restored then she will be available for community events such as concerts, and children who are learning the organ will be able to practise on her once again.”
These are the recommended donations:
Choose your level Donation
Stop £100
16ft pipe £60
8ft pipe £30
4ft pipe £15
If you would like to donate, please contact Lesley on
revd.lesley@badshotleaandhale.org
When I was nine years old, I remember having a discussion with my friend, Cherry, at school about how babies were made. She thought boys had something to do with it. I asked my mum and dad about it after school that day and they sat me down in our dining room and told me the biological facts of human reproduction. I burst into tears. It was all a bit too much for me that day, even though, to this day, I remain grateful to my late parents for their courage, honesty and clarity in telling me the Facts of Life.
My mum, Jean, was told nothing at all on this subject by her parents. When she was nine years old and her younger sister, Margaret, was born, my mum looked in the dustbin for the eggshells from the eggs which she thought her mum must have laid when the baby was born!
After my parents’ honest chat with me, they gave me a Ladybird Book called The Human Body which contained the details they had explained to me (plus colour drawings!) and which also explained digestion, respiration etc. That book gave me a lifelong interest in how the human body works in sickness and in health.
Mary, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, was probably only 14 or 15 years old when Jesus was conceived within her by divine, not human, means. Initially fearful and confused as to how this promised baby could possibly be created without the help of a man, Mary then demonstrates an impressively open-minded, trusting and humble faith in the fulfilment of God’s promises to send a Saviour, Jesus Christ, whose kingdom will have no end.
So, what does such a young girl as Mary do in this highly irregular, not to say potentially shameful situation, of being pregnant but not being married? Remember also that a standard human baby would have been enough of a worry, but her baby was nothing less than the Son of God. A pretty tall order for one so young.
As many women have done before and since, Mary seeks female support and travels from the one-camel town which is Nazareth – it possibly only had around 150 inhabitants – for four days into the hill country of Judea to her much older relative (probably her cousin) Elizabeth who is six months pregnant with John the Baptist. Some scholars believe that Joseph may have accompanied Mary on this potentially dangerous and arduous trip at the start of a pregnancy which will also end with an arduous trip but that time to Bethlehem. We can only imagine the conversations between Zechariah, Elizabeth’s elderly husband and Joseph, if Joseph did go along to Elizabeth and Zechariah’s home with Mary.
I wonder whether Mary was sure of the welcome she would receive from Elizabeth? Might Mary have feared criticism or rejection by Elizabeth? Perhaps, just perhaps, Mary was nervous about their meeting. I have no doubt that on her long journey, Mary would have prayed for a happy meeting. Her prayers are answered, if so, in spades.
As Luke describes it, what happens when Mary does eventually arrive at Elizabeth’s home is a wonderful scene, quite rare in the Bible, of a very pure, intimate, domestic demonstration of female bonding, unshakeable faith and mutual empowerment. Though Mary’s pregnancy probably does not yet show physically, Elizabeth, wife of the Jewish priest, Zechariah, knows with eyes of faith that the child Mary carries within her is indeed Our Lord Jesus Christ. John the Baptist, as an unborn baby, moves within Elizabeth’s womb when Mary greets Elizabeth. The Bible states that the unborn John ‘leapt for joy’, possibly a little bit of literary exaggeration but entirely appropriate for such a significant encounter with the divine Son of God.
Elizabeth calls Mary blessed because, she says, the fruit of Mary’s womb is ‘my Lord’ and because Mary believed that she would conceive and bear a Son even though Mary had absolutely no idea how it would happen.
No idea how it would happen……. Do you currently have no idea how you are going to get through a particularly testing time in your life? Do you have no idea where money is going to come from? Do you have no idea how a personal disagreement or problem is going to be solved? Do you feel up against it, muddled, confused, with no idea about something you simply do not understand?
Try singing your prayers, as Mary did in her beautiful, praiseful, worshipful, well-known song called The Magnificat. Singing may relax you enough so that you can start to see God opening a door you did not see before. Keep an open mind and stay humble, believing, as Mary did, that nothing is impossible with God but do also, as she did, seek support and advice from other trustworthy sources. Dig deep within yourself to find the child-like faith Mary had in God who puts to flight proud hearts and stubborn wills, who feeds the hungry with good things and lifts up the lowly. Believe with all your heart, that, as we sing in the hymn Tell Out My Soul, God’s promise to each and every one of us, is firm and his mercy from age to age is sure and unchanging. He will bring us through every time of testing. Tears will last for a night, but joy will come in the morning.
From a sermon by Wendy Edwards, preached at St John’s on Sunday, December 22.
This Christmas, come and join us at services at any of the three churches – St George’s in Badshot Lea, St John’s in Hale, St Mark’s in Upper Hale. For details of services, see here. For details of why you may want to, read on.
Human beings are natural storytellers. It is something that defines us. We love stories, we define ourselves by our stories, in them we find identity. We even turn things that aren’t really stories into stories because everything needs a story for us to find it plausible; if there is no story then we don’t really register what we are hearing; lists of names or facts or equations generally bore us.
More than anything we need stories of hope and stories to unite us. These are the best stories and they are even better if we tell them from one generation to the next, including the children in the telling. I love the Jewish tradition of Passover, with the unleavened bread, the bitter herbs and the four glasses of wine representing hope, and the youngest child asks the question four times in different ways “Why is this night, of all nights, different?”
The story of Christmas is part of the greatest story ever told, and for me it is the most shocking part, that 2000 years ago a baby was born who united heaven and earth, united God and humankind, and this baby was born in humble circumstances. This baby was worshipped by angels in heaven, poor shepherds who lived locally, and rich magi who had travelled from afar. The baby gets a name “Emmanuel” which means “God with us”, and in that name is our hope and our unity, God is with us… Wow…
We remember this each year, we act it out at our crib services, we involve our children, so that we all know the story. We know that Herod was horrible, we know that there was no room at the inn, we know that Mary was a virgin (even if some of us don’t yet know that word means!) and that she travelled a long way on a donkey whilst heavily pregnant. During the rendition of this story some of the women who have given birth smile at the depictions of Mary’s labour, there are usually a few costume malfunctions, sometimes we struggle to find a Joseph (understandable really), and we all sing carols. The story doesn’t get old or tired.
We also remember this story each year at the “First mass of Christmas” – Midnight Mass – when the church is lit with candles and the organ plays the carols we know so well. Everything is more magical at night time, we wait up past our bedtimes with expectation and with joy, joining together as a rather disparate community, all with one intention, to see in this special day where we celebrate the birth of our Saviour. There are some who come to church only once a year to this service, there are some who have come from afar who are staying with friends or relatives, there are some who have just come from the pub; last year we had some who were Muslims and who had never been to a service in their lives before, and there are some who are regulars at that church. This is the magic of Christmas – the ability for this story to bring us all together in hope.
I love the poem “Christmas” by John Betjeman that we hear each year at the carol service at St John’s. It ends with a question:
And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?
And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,
No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare –
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
And is it true? Why is this night of all nights different?
I pray that your Christmas will be joyful and give you hope, I pray that you will find unity and community in your travels this Christmastide and I pray that this will bless you throughout 2019.
Lesley Crawley
Tonight at St John’s, Hale, we are holding a service especially for people for whom Christmas is a time of pain and grieving.
The Longest Night – when Christmas hurts will take place at 7.30pm, and is a service of prayers, music, readings and lighting candles, for people who want to reconnect with the love of God from the depths of their own pain.
Lesley Crawley explains the thinking behind this: “Christmas is a particularly difficult time to be grieving or feeling pain. Jesus came into our broken world as a helpless baby and through this simple service we pray that you will find hope and comfort in knowing that you are not alone.”
Anyone who would like pastoral support or to talk to someone in the parish about any difficulty is invited to contact Lesley or Alan Crawley on revd.lesley@badshotleaandhale.org or revd.alan@badshotleaandhale.org or 01252 820537.
Come and sing carols for Christmas!
As we approach Christmas, there are plenty of opportunities to join in singing carols in celebration, starting with Informal Carols by Candlelight at St Mark’s on Friday (14th) at 6pm.
Then on Sunday (16th) both St George’s and St John’s are holding carol services.
At St George’s at 11.30am come and join the Worship for All Carol Service, and later that day there is a Candlelit Carol Service at 6pm.
Meanwhile at St John’s at 4pm, join in the beautiful traditional service of Nine Lessons and Carols by Candlelight.
On Monday (17th) at 6pm, there will be carols under the lit tree at St George’s (inside if wet).
And on Tuesday (18th), come and sing carols at the Hale Institute from 6-8pm.
Come and celebrate with us! Everyone is welcome.
Come and join our Christmas Carol Extravaganza on Saturday (December 8) at St Mark’s, any time from 10.30am.
The day starts with coffee at 10.30am followed by carols from 11am and a light lunch at 12.30pm.
There are plenty of favourite carols to join in with – O come, O come Emmanuel; Silent Night; Hark! the herald-angels sing; Good King Wenceslas; The Holly and the ivy; O come, all ye faithful, and many, many more. There will also be ‘Christmas Rhythm’, a piece by Geoff Willis with eight Christmas carols hidden within. The audience can have some fun identifying them.
All the pieces and carols will be played on ‘Emily’, our treasured Edwardian organ, with other instruments sometimes to help her out. Bob Shatwell is MC, and he’s leading ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ at the end, so anything could happen! Donations welcome in aid of Emily. There will also be a raffle.
Emily is 106, and has a few tricks! You’ll hear surprising sounds you wouldn’t expect. A short demo will reveal her eccentricities, and the need to raise funds.
The Parish of Badshot Lea and Hale 