Our crib services are online on Christmas Eve. If you have little ones, catch our simple nativity story told and sung by Margaret Emberson at 3pm. You can find it here.
Then at 5.30pm there is a crib service for all ages, performed by all ages – the Christmas story re-enacted by members of our three churches. You’ll see your friends as you’ve never seen them before! Catch it here.
May you find joy and peace this Christmas.
Christmas is not always easy. That will be the case for many people this year. The Christmas we are sold in the twinkling lights, the merry music, the adverts of happy families smiling at each other – even if it has to be via Zoom – is not the reality for everyone. It can be a time of intense loneliness, sad memories, the pain of broken relationships.
If that sounds familiar or you are feeling anxious or just really jaded, listen to our Longest Night service here, a quiet time of music, prayer and reflection.
With thanks to Olivia Jasper – soloist, and the choirs of the parish, Hale School – Yale Year 5 – See him lying on a bed of straw, Farnham Heath End School for O Holy Night and Torches. Readings by Diana Corbett – Hale WI, Sue Lampard – Performers Together, Kate Napier – Artifice, Bishop Christopher Herbert, Three Christmas Poems from Farnham Heath End School, Gemma Ball – Badshot Lea Village Infant School
With thanks to St John’s and St George’s choir, Folly Hill School for Little Donkey, Badshot Lea Village Infants School – Away in a Manger, our band, readings from Freddie, Freyja, Niamh, Matthew and Tia, Prayers from Jess
Food poverty is on the rise in the UK. The UN estimates that millions of people struggle to get enough to eat, and Unicef is giving £700k to help support hungry British families. Foodbank use is on the rise both locally and nationally.
In response to this, our very good friends in the area, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community UK, have launched a ‘Cheap & Easy Cooking’ campaign. As part of this, they have produced a downloadable booklet to help us cook five Pakistani/Indian curries cheaply, easily, and healthily, with meals starting at only 9p per serving. You can download the booklet here:
The aim of the campaign is to raise awareness among people to save money by cooking budget-friendly dishes at home rather than eating costly meals from outside. The campaign consists of distributing a recipe booklet containing easy-to-follow instructions to make delicious Pakistani/Indian curries along with online videos that show how these can be cooked. These videos can be watched here.
The community is also distributing some Curry Starter Packs to the local Food Bank, which will also include the basic ingredients so that people can easily and quickly get started.
Join us in the car park at St George’s Church, Badshot Lea, tonight at 6pm for a socially distanced carol service by torch and candlelight.
Wrap up warm and sing some old favourites. Badshot Lea Village Infant School will join us to sing Away in a Manger and there will be prayers and Bible readings too, including one by Farnham and Waverley councillor Mark Merryweather.
Yessss! We are allowed to sing carols – Outdoors! Please come along for some Christmas joy:
St George’s – 20th December 6pm
We’ve had no time to advertise so please tell all your friends!
Are you here? Please let me know if you can help in the services
I recently saw this article in The Guardian. It highlighted for me one of the good, and at the same time bad, things about the Church of England.
The CofE is what is described as a broad church. Many Churches have a Statement of Belief, and if you want to belong to their Church you have to sign to say that you agree with everything in it. The Church of England does not. Instead if you can say the liturgy with integrity you are in. Queen Elizabeth I arranged this on purpose at a time when Christians were killing each other over differences of interpretation. She said:
I would not open windows into men’s souls.
This leaves the Church of England with a wide spread of beliefs/interpretations which are legitimately held by members. I like this, it means that we know that we are not expected to know the mind of God – that as Oliver Cromwell said:
I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.
However, some strands of the Church of England are more comfortable with this than others. It is in some ways as though the Church is a collection of several different churches.
This is a long-winded way of saying that within the Church of England you will be able to find churches as described in the article, and at the same time you will be able to find those, like ours, which are members of Inclusive Church, and which try to welcome everybody.
There are of course other churches which welcome LGBTQI+ people more than the CofE is able to do while we struggle to work out how to do this in a way that satisfies everybody within the church.
The linked article by a vicar gives a flavour of the difficulties faced finding one which welcomes everyone.
Don’t give up on God yet!
Image by Belinda Fewings, Unsplash
Join us in the car park at St Mark’s tonight for a socially distanced carol service by torch and candle-light. Wrap up warm, bring a mask and sing some old favourites. There will be prayers and Bible readings too, including one by Cllr Penny Marriott, Mayor of Waverley.
The Parish of Badshot Lea and Hale 