You are invited to join us for a parish prayer meeting on the last Wednesday of the month at 7pm at St Mark’s, Upper Hale, starting tonight, September 24th.
Join us to pray for the community, the world, the parish, each other.
If you have any prayer requests, please email Rev’d Lexi or call her on 07792233477.
Come along to our new informal, contemporary service on the first and third Sunday of the month at 3pm at St George’s, Badshot Lea.
This will be a space where everyone is welcome to come and explore what it means to be a follower of Jesus, look at the Bible, pray and worship together. We can’t wait to see you there.
Contact Rev’d Lexi for more details. 07792233477.
We are holding a Vision Morning on October 4th, 10am-12pm, at St Mark’s Church, so that we can all have a say in the future of the parish and try to discern what God is calling us to in this new phase.
What would you like to see happening in the next years? New services? Youth work? More support for older people? Families? Tackling isolation? Evangelism? Prayer?
Have you a particular idea which you think might be part of the way God will work among us all and the communities we serve? How might we work together to allow God’s light to shine through us?
Even if you haven’t a single idea, come and listen and find out more.
All welcome. If you have any questions contact Lexi on
07792233477
St Mark’s will be buzzing on Saturday, September 20th, when we hold our Autumn Craft Market, starting at 10am and running until 2pm.
Come and browse the stalls for toys, handknits, cards, jewellery, needlecraft and all manner of gifts. There is live music and a café to meet you friends for a cuppa and eat homemade rolls and cakes.
What’s more, you can see the beautiful Kitty Milroy murals, painted in the early 20th century and restored in 2021. These have been recognised as nationally important in the development of mural art and an exceptional example of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
It’s free to enter and always a lovely atmosphere.
It’s time to bring your dogs, cats (maybe not), guinea pigs, rabbits, hamsters, geckos, pet spiders, snakes, stick insects and any other animals you have living at home to church for our annual pet service which, this year, will be at St Mark’s at 11am.
Pets are a wonderful blessing to many of us and can help our mental and physical health. So let’s give thanks for them in all their shapes and sizes and bring them for a blessing. If your pet is too large or too nervous to come to church, you can bring a picture of them instead. And if you don’t have a pet, why not bring a favourite soft toy instead? Or dress up as an animal? After all, as the hymn says: all God’s creatures got a place in the choir!
Rev’d Lexi Russell said: “Pets are indeed welcome in all forms, fluffy or scaly. Their humans will be tolerated.
“I believe that God loves all creatures. Pets are a really important part of people’s families and we want to celebrate everyone in our families.”
Pictured below is Lexi and her dog Bugsy.
St Mark’s is taking part in the 2025 Heritage Open Days and welcoming people to the church on Friday, September 19th at 11am and Saturday, September 20th at 3pm, to see the Kitty Milroy murals and have all their questions answered by Nick Seversway who is an expert on the subject.
This is an ideal opportunity for anyone who hasn’t yet seen the murals, or would like to find out more, to come along and have a detailed look.
The murals, which are of significant national importance in the development of 20th-century mural painting, were painted between 1911 and 1920 by local woman Eleanor Catherine Wallace Milroy (‘Kitty’) using other local people as models.
They blend influences from European Symbolist painting and the Arts and Crafts Movement and have been featured in the national media. Comparisons have been made with pictures in The Watts Chapel and it is known that Mary Watts visited the area.
The murals are a celebration of faith, seen through the natural world, and include the words ‘O, all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord’ (The Benedicite, a canticle taken from ‘The Song of the Three Holy Children’ from the apocryphal parts of the Book of Daniel) and ‘O give thanks unto the Lord’ (from Psalm 136).
They had deteriorated significantly over the years and in 2021 were restored by internationally renowned mural conservationists Stephen Rickerby and Lisa Shekede.
There is no need to book, so please come along on September 19th or 20th. Refreshments will be served.
A year ago the parish got together with the Hale Community Centre to start a new project—the weekly Clothing Giveaway and Café on Monday mornings at St Mark’s.
We didn’t know how it would work out but, 12 months down the line, we have queues at the door every Monday before 9am and several hundred free items of clothing or shoes go out of that same door before 11am. In fact, we are so pleased that we will be celebrating on September 8th with birthday cake!
The idea of the Clothing Giveaway is to encourage people not just to throw out their old clothes but to donate them—as long as they are in good condition and clean—and to fill the spaces in their wardrobe with clothes which may have been worn but still have plenty of life left in them. The current preferred expression for this is ‘pre-loved’ which probably appeals more than ‘second-hand’.
This has a two-fold goal: to help people save money and to help save the planet. Many of us are struggling economically after years of austerity and the fashion industry has a serious and growing impact on the environment in terms of water-use, emissions and landfill, as well as the human cost of poor working conditions (see here for example). We are doing just a little bit towards protecting the planet and its inhabitants, but the more people who do their bit, the more impact we all have.
The Clothing Giveaway has been able to have this successful first year thanks to a lot of hard work and generosity. Farnham Lions and Voluntary Action South West Surrey gave us grants; clothes, shoes, sheets, towels, and baby gear have poured in from donors; the Community Centre designed flyers and banners and keeps spreading the news; and St Mark’s congregation has shown a wealth of forbearance about having a section of the church permanently filled with clothes as well as putting out tables every Sunday for setting-up later.
Most of all, I want to thank the volunteers who work tirelessly every week, sorting, folding, hanging and even ironing clothes; laying them out in a far more appealing way than I could ever manage; coming up with themes; taking bags of unusable clothes to be recycled; serving tea, coffee, cakes and pastries; chatting to those who come in; and generally keeping the show on the road. Amanda, Anne, Kay, Mandy, Sonia, Steph and Sylvie are there week by week with others dipping in and out when they can. Thank you all!
We could do with some more help, especially in clearing up at 11am on a Monday so if you think you could help, even occasionally, let us know. Email me at rev.stella@badshotleaandhale.org or call me on 07342508164 which is my number for curacy matters.
Come and see us on September 8th for cake and clothes, or any other Monday you fancy. We are open every Monday morning, 9-11am, apart from Bank Holidays and we will close over Christmas and New Year.
Come to our Pride Services this Sunday – 7th – at all three churches. Celebrate the wonderful diversity of humans, loved by God just as we are.
Services times are St John’s: 9.30am; St George’s: 10am; and St Mark’s: 11am.
All are welcome.
Autumn is, just about, here and so is our September magazine. Inside you can find news on upcoming events including our Pride services on September 7th, our Pet service, Craft Market, Harvest Festival, Harvest Supper, a concert from Out of the Shadows and Heritage Open Days. There is spiritual reflection and prayer, reports on events and the Church Cat and the Church Dog vying for your attention.
There are plenty of adverts too so please do use the companies who kindly advertise in our magazine. They enable us to keep going.
Download the magazine below:
The scaffolding is up and work is about to begin to restore the crumbling tower at St John’s. This is thanks to the generosity of individual donors and grant-awarding bodies, and the hard work of parishioners who applied for grants and put on fundraisers to find the cash for the repairs.
The work will cost at least £32,500 and we’ve been raising the money for several years through a mix of grants, fundraising events and donations. At the end of July, we launched a final push to find the last £5,500 so that the stonemason could start in September. Publicity, including in the Farnham Herald, brought forth a flood of donations meaning that Anstey & Stone, stonemasons, can begin work now.
Rev’d Lexi Russell, rector of the church, said: “Thank you so much for the incredibly generous donations which have been made. They mean that a Hale landmark which has stood there for generations past will be standing for generations to come.
“We do know that because the church is old – it is 181 now – it is very likely that there will be more work needed and we will need more funds, so please, if you feel able, do continue to donate. And thank you all again for what you have done.”
Restoration work is expected to take six weeks to complete and should be finished by the end of October. In the meantime, further fundraising events are in the calendar, including a concert of 60s music by popular Farnham band Out of the Shadows on the afternoon of September 27, starting at 2pm. Information is available here. There is also a fundraising page here.
If we raise more money than we actually need for the tower itself it will go into a fund specifically for work on St John’s and will not be spent on anything else.
The Parish of Badshot Lea and Hale 