Continuing the series of podcasts for Generosity Week, today Busola Sodeinde draws on the experience of the Israelites in the desert with Moses (Exodus 16), and how this teaches us the value of having just enough.
Listen here.
Generosity Week. Monday – Faith over Fear
Every day this week we are considering our own generosity and are providing links to short podcasts which the Church of England has provided.
Today Busola Sodeinde looks at how faith might overcome fear in uncertain times, using Matthew, chapter 6.
Listen here.
Sunday Service – Generosity Sunday
Below is the Sunday service. First, here are the notices:
Notices
Giving
This church relies on donations to provide care and support to everyone in this community. Now more than ever, please consider giving generously to support our mission and ministry by clicking the button above. Thank you for your support.
Service
Generosity Week
Each year in the autumn we hold a generosity week, and this year it will take place from Sunday, September 10th to Sunday, September 17th. There are so many aspects to generosity, and Stella has written a really interesting article on generosity, that I recommend here. Most people think about giving money, or perhaps time or talents, and these are all important, but generosity is also expressed in how we treat other people – the way we speak to and about them, the way we forgive, make allowances for and give other the benefit of the doubt. It is in the way we use social media, the way we listen to others we don’t necessarily understand, the way we look for what unites us rather than what divides us. When we are generous in our hearts, it spills over into our lives. Generosity also extends to how we treat our planet so that we are more willing to take care of the resources and share with others, including the generations yet to come.
There are so many ways that we are generous as a church in our actions and support for many in our community in many ways:
- Foodbank collections
- Hygiene Bank collections and storage
- Farnham Help for Refugees collections
- Part of Farnham Connects (the group that coordinated work through the pandemic)
- Helping schools including mentoring at Farnham Heath End School
- Services and visiting at local care homes
- Little Bees toddler group
- Friday Night Games club for all ages
- Open the book – presenting Bible stories in our nurseries and schools
- Weddings, funerals, baptisms
- Connections at St George’s for the over 50s
- Support for the Sandy Hill Inclusive Partnership
- Arts events
- Questioning faith and study groups
- Social events
- Welcoming other groups into our churches so that they can hold their own events
- A port of call for those who are bereaved or troubled in any way
I’m sure you can think of many other things that we do as churches that support our community. We do have much to give thanks for and many things planned as we continue to serve our community.
I am told we have 59 people who give either through the PGS system or through giving to the bank, I don’t know whether you are one of our planned givers, but if not, I wonder whether you might like to be. If so – please contact Jacquie, our Stewardship Officer – stewardship.officer@badshotleaandhale.org and she will help you. Also, please would you take a moment to prayerfully review your giving for the next year. I know we are all in different financial situations, some much better off than others, but if you would be able to increase your giving that would help us with our financial security going forwards. At the moment, the average donation is £89 per month. I am very grateful for the increases in giving we have seen over the years. This year is the first year in over a decade that we have seen the level of giving reduce, which is very understandable given the economic downturn. This unfortunately coincides with a rise in inflation, and our outgoings increasing.
To make ends meet, each church needs to raise about £50,000 per year (and we have three) and the main way that we finance that is through giving, the projected income streams this year are:
| Total Giving | £67,500 |
| Fundraising | £9,000 |
| Trading (hall rentals, magazine income) | £46,200 |
| Gift Aid recovered | £2,500 |
| PCC Fees (funerals, weddings) | £7,500 |
| Other Income (including rental of curate’s house) | £19,000 |
| Grants | £525 |
| Legacies | £0 |
| Total | £149,000 |
If you would like more detailed information on the budget, then please ask me. The good news is, for the first time, our budget balances and we are paying all our bills on time. We have received a letter from the archdeacon commending us on our sterling effort. It is very tight, but the PCC have managed this process of being able to balance the books. This is mostly due to increased trading, and that has been a blessing both to us and our community – see the article here and also due to incredibly generous giving. Please continue to pray, and help us if you can, our finances are so very fragile.
I have also put together some ‘Situations Vacant’ – there are many roles that you may be able to help us with! To see that click here.
Thanks again for all you do,
Blessings
Lesley
What does generosity mean for us?
“Our days are happier when we give people a piece of our heart rather than a piece of our mind.”
No-one seems to know who said this, but it is wise advice and it fits in beautifully with the focus of the next week in the parish – Generosity.
Every year in the parish we hold a generosity week, and this year it will take place over the eight days between two Sundays – September 10th and 17th. The first is Generosity Sunday and the second is Gratitude Sunday. Generosity and gratitude are intimately linked.
What do we mean by generosity?
Generosity means giving. The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as “a willingness to give help or support, especially more than is usual or expected”. The Bible emphasises its importance again and again; in fact one source suggests that ‘giving’ is mentioned more than 1,500 times in the Old and New Testaments, though I did not try to count.
This giving can mean many things. Money, time and service are three that often spring to mind but there are more, some of which are discussed below. Giving, of course, can come from a sense of obligation: I am commanded to give (by the Bible, the Church, an appeal) and therefore I must. This can be good for self-discipline, which has its place, but on its own is unlikely to lead to sustained giving. Obligation can lead to resentment, and resentment is a bit of a generosity-killer.
So how can generosity be kept alive?
Love God and love your neighbour
Christian generosity is a response to God and to the commandment to love God and love our neighbours as ourselves. If we love our neighbours as ourselves then we will want what is best for them, we will want to share.
This can be tough as we may feel, particularly in hard times, that we haven’t got enough to share if we are to look after ourselves.
A grateful shift of perspective
Maybe one way of helping us here is to consider what we have to be grateful for. Research has shown that this is actually good for our health and gives us a more positive outlook on life. A useful daily exercise this week could be to think of 10 things we have to be grateful for. The exercise can help shift our perspective, making us less anxious and therefore more willing to share.
Focusing on a loving God can also inspire generosity. “We love because God first loved us”, wrote John in 1 John 4:19. God is a loving parent whose love can spill over into God’s children and out to others.
How, though, can we see God’s love for us? We can think about the times we have seen God’s love in our lives. And we can think about Jesus told people not to worry. He said: “Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you.” (Luke 12:27-28, NRSVA). I know that we often fail to do this but trying to do so can help us.
How might we be generous?
Giving money, time, service are starters for being generous, and incredibly important, but generosity is also an attitude of mind which involves the way we think about and treat people. Do we look on other people in the best light, believing that they too are humans trying to make sense of life, just as we all are.
There is a phrase in psychology called ‘unconditional positive regard’ which involves showing complete support and acceptance of a person no matter what that person says or does.(Note, this doesn’t mean accepting all behaviours or colluding with them, or allowing people to overstep boundaries, it means simply accepting the person). Trying to show this helps us look far more kindly on others than we might otherwise do.
Generosity involves the time we give to other people, the attention we pay them and the way we speak to and about others, both in person and on social media which can be a place of great cruelty as well as great support.
Generosity also encompasses how we treat people who we do not understand or who do things we cannot understand, who seem different, ‘other’.
It also encompasses how we treat the planet. Do we treat it just for our own benefit or do we think about how our actions affect others, including those not yet born.
An attitude of heart
Generosity like this comes from an attitude of heart and mind.
I think that it is also linked with what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13: ‘If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing’. (NRSVA). It is linked to our perspective and changing our perspective may take time and sometimes it may feel costly.
I’ve been using a ‘Stages of change’ model to think about how we can change habits so that we move from thinking about changing habits, to preparing to do so, to actually doing it, to maintaining the changed habits, and I believe it can be used to help us become more generous.
So, we might think we want to be more generous then prepare to be so by, perhaps, talking to others about what we could share, or why we have enough or what we could do; or maybe by learning about what is going on in other people’s lives, or forming some sort of relationship with others which is actively focused on trying to learn about them.
Then we could take action in whatever way seems appropriate, which may be in giving of time, money, attention, service. It will be different for different people. When we do things enough times it becomes natural to us and then that becomes an ingrained habit. So generosity can become part of the way we see the world.
When generosity becomes a part of the way we see the world, then we will have bigger hearts to give pieces of to other people, and the world will be a happier place.
Stella Wiseman
September Toddler Service
Enjoy this service, especially for toddlers.
Hiring out our churches – why we do it
Lesley Crawley explains.
I recently heard a talk by the Reverend Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, and he talked in a very practical way about funding church ministry. There have been various models over the centuries:
The Benefactor – often the Lord of the Manor would upkeep the church and pay for all that was needed. Very handy if you can find yourself a benefactor, but on the other hand perhaps one person could have too much sway – I guess everything, including the vicar’s sermons might have to please the benefactor.
Stewardship – the way that free churches have always organised themselves. If there are 10 people in a church and they give 10 percent of their gross income then they can afford a minister. That is fine for a house church where people meet in houses, but to get a building then a few more people need to give 10 per cent of their gross income! Anglican churches encourage Stewardship too, but rarely can people afford to give quite as much as that, or perhaps there is a different culture around giving amongst Anglicans – the Church of England recommends five per cent of our gross income.
Again, it is very handy to fund the church this way, but perhaps there is an issue that it only involves the church congregation. After all, as Anglicans, everyone in the village is part of the church. Everyone has access to the church building for services – baptisms, weddings and funerals, and for prayer; everyone is part of the ‘cure of souls’ that the vicar promises to look after. Perhaps, therefore, everyone in the village can have a hand in funding the local church. Stewardship alone might be rather inward-looking.
Social enterprise – this involves the community. It can be aspirational, for instance employing only the homeless, but at the heart of every social enterprise is the need to make money. Churches do various things – run preschools, offer themselves as concert venues, sell merchandise, and run cafés. In our case, we hire our churches out as venues for parties, meetings and clubs. Social Enterprise makes the church a seven days a week building, increases by a factor of 10 how many people come through the doors, and brings us into conversation with a huge range of people.
Who are we in conversation and partnership with? Well, lots of people, we can’t list them all but here are some examples:
We have particularly strong links with the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association and now have an interfaith women’s group with them. Stella has been asked to speak at their Itfars (the fast-breaking evening meal which Muslims have during Ramadan) and they are keen to help where they can with community initiatives, eg the Warm Hub. They have joined in our flower festivals, craft markets and the poetry festival. We get a lot of bookings from them at both St Mark’s and St George’s.
The Syro-Malabar Church hire St George’s every week to teach Kerala dancing and took part in our concert for Christian Aid.
Magikats teach students at St George’s every Tuesday and kindly donated £100 for Father Christmas presents at the craft market.
Florescence is a small floristry business at St Mark’s and has sponsored the flower festival.
Alder Valley Brass Band have hired St John’s and St Mark’s and have played at some of our events.
The Badshot Lea Ladies Group brings people from the village into St George’s who might not otherwise feel part of the church.
Baby Ballet have been regular hirers at St George’s for several years and have danced at our parish fete.
Honryu Martial Arts has just started hiring St Mark’s and the leader is keen to help support the church’s work with young people (he’s a counsellor and uses martial arts to support people with behavioural problems).
Luke from Guildford Tai Chi, who books St Mark’s on a Wednesday, took part in the embodied worship series, giving us a free session.
Stella has worked with Right at Home on some memory workshops at their Sunflower Café (for people with dementia) and they have booked St Mark’s and St George’s for various activities. We have a great relationship with them and look forward to more partnership working.
Several groups have donated raffle prizes.
The relationship with the Badshot Lea Working Men’s Club (WMC)is now excellent and we help each other out with parking. They often pay to use our car park. There is a group of older people (mostly in their 80s+) who meet at the club who are very grateful for the car park. Several of them came to the Jubilee tea party last year. Stella has been asked to baptise the son of one of the women who works at the WMC.
In addition to all this, I strongly believe that God gives us everything we need. For years we scratched our heads, wondering how to pay our way, and thanks to God’s mercy, our buildings, members of our congregation within them and Stella running our Social Enterprise, we now can pay our way. We need to do ministry and fund ministry. Hiring our buildings is a mixture of both.
More than anything, our community must experience the church as a blessing. Our hospitality is a reflection of the hospitality of the God we serve. Not long ago, Stella received this email:
I wanted to extend my sincerest gratitude for providing your hall as the venue for my baby’s first birthday party. The event was a great success, and we couldn’t have asked for a better place to celebrate this special day.
Your hall’s facilities and ambience were perfect for the occasion, and our guests thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Your assistance and support throughout the process made the planning much easier, and I truly appreciate your kind cooperation.
Once again, thank you for making my baby’s first birthday party memorable. We are grateful for your generosity and hospitality.
The community are blessing us through this ministry; not just with their money, but with their gifts such as music and dancing, allowing us to share in their ministries and their communities, giving to us out of their expertise. Hopefully, we can offer more than our space; we offer our hospitality, and our faith. For everyone in our villages, we have space that can honour you for us, every relationship is a taste of Christ.
Rev’d Lesley Crawley
Pictured top is St Mark’s Church set up for a party
How craft and coffee created a carpet
Thanks to a huge effort. a lot of generous people and extremely hard work by Bob Shatwell, St Mark’s has a new carpet (pictured above with members of the St Mark’s congregation).
The majority of the funds raised was from the Craft Market which runs at St Mark’s on the third Saturday of March, June, September and November (the next one is on 16th so come and see the carpet as well as all the crafts!). Since the market started in 2021, it has raised £3,852.50 from craft stalls and £2,005.57 from selling refreshments, in large part thanks to Jean Sanders, Chriss Green, Elaine Fell and the team, along with musicians Bob and Lesley Shatwell, Roger Sanders and friends who keep everyone entertained during the market.
Well done to everyone involved and a massive thank you! The carpet enhances the building and sets off the Kitty Milroy murals nicely.
The carpet replaces an aisle carpet which became a trip hazard and had to be taken up, and one in the nave in front of the altar which was threadbare and dirty. The new one not only looks hugely better but feels it too, so much so that one of the church’s regular hirers who runs music classes for pre-school children said: “It’s so comfortable to sit on we nearly fell asleep on it!”
From left: Elaine Fell, Rev’d Lesley Crawley, Jean Sanders on the new carpet.
Come to the autumn craft market
It’s our autumn Craft Market on Saturday, September 16th at St Mark’s Church, Upper Hale, from 10am to 2pm.
Come and browse and buy lovely homemade gifts, meet your friends in the café for coffee, cakes, and filled rolls, listen to love music, and know you are supporting local businesses and the church.
Among the stalls will be Whimsy and Joyful selling plastic-free handmade knitted Alice bands from 100% wool; clocks created from CDs by DNWFoto; Linda’s Crafting Creations selling upcycled gifts; cards from Julie Owen; Knitty Nora’s handknits; and pretty bracelets from Charlotte Barnard.
Come and have a relaxing couple of hours. You could even shop early for Christmas!
Clockwise from top left: bracelets by Charlotte Barnard, Alice bands from Whimsy and Joyful, tea cosy by Knitty Nora and clocks by DMWFoto.
Sunday Service – Creationtide 1
Below is the Sunday service. First, here are the notices:
Notices
Giving
This church relies on donations to provide care and support to everyone in this community. Now more than ever, please consider giving generously to support our mission and ministry by clicking the button above. Thank you for your support.
The Parish of Badshot Lea and Hale 