Category Archives: St George’s Church

St George's Church, St John's Church, St Mark's Church

We are an Inclusive Church

Leave a comment

The three churches in the Parish – St George’s, St John’s and St Mark’s – are now, officially inclusive. We belong to Inclusive Church.

For those who are unfamiliar with this – as I certainly was a couple of years ago – it means that we as churches have signed up to the following statement of faith:
“We believe in Inclusive Church – church which does not discriminate, on any level, on grounds of economic power, gender, mental health, physical ability, race or sexuality. We believe in Church which welcomes and serves all people in the name of Jesus Christ; which is scripturally faithful; which seeks to proclaim the Gospel afresh for each generation; and which, in the power of the Holy Spirit, allows all people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Jesus Christ.”

It means we appear on a website https://inclusive-church.org directing people to churches where they may feel welcome whoever they are.

But isn’t that all of us? Aren’t we all welcoming and inclusive? We hope so, but the more I have thought about true inclusion, the more I have seen it as something we often fail at. I am a prime example. I’m great at coming up with ideas of how we can make ‘those people over there’ feel welcome. Great, I want to include them, it’s just that by my attitude I am dividing ‘them’ from ‘us’, forgetting that we are all the body of Christ. It’s not a case of ‘us’ being a body and ‘them’ being another body. We are the body. You can read more of my thoughts on this here.

Inclusive church is about finding out who might want to come to church but feels unable to. It may be something physical such as access or not being able to follow the service easily. It may be because someone is struggling financially and feels embarrassed about not being able to contribute. It may be because someone is bisexual and has picked up the idea that they are wrong in God’s and society’s sight. I can remember how as a new and totally overwhelmed mother I felt unable to be part of a local church – it was just too much.

There can be a host of reasons why we may feel unwelcome in a church and often Christians are as insensitive, prejudiced and downright judgemental as anyone else, so excluding people from a place where they should feel welcome and safe.

However, we can try, we can learn – and I am planning to run some Inclusive Church events in the next year to help us with this – we can listen to others, we can pray and we can listen to God. Then we may realise that we are one body. Then we may grow in faith and love.

Stella Wiseman

 

 

Services, St George's Church, St John's Church, St Mark's Church

Remembrance Services

Leave a comment

On November 12th the following services of Remembrance will take place:

In Hale the 9:30 Service at St John’s followed by 10:45 at the War Memorial then a 11:15 Service all-age at St Mark’s.

In Badshot Lea the 10:00 Shortened Service at St George’s followed by 10:50 at the War Memorial.

In Weybourne a service at 4pm at the War Memorial followed by refreshments in the Village Hall.

St George's Church, St John's Church, St Mark's Church

Services for the Bereaved

Leave a comment

At these three simple services we will be lighting candles to remember those who have died.

  • St John’s at 6:30pm on Sat 28th Oct,
  • St Mark’s at 11:00am on Sun 29th Oct and
  • St George’s at 4:00pm on Sun 29th Oct

Please stay for coffee and cake after the services.

If you would like a loved one remembered at one of these services please bring their name on a piece of paper to the service. For more information contact Lesley on 01252 820537 or revd.lesley@badshotleaandhale.org

Churchyard, St George's Church

St George’s Church Garden

Leave a comment

Our Church Garden has become a bit overgrown. It has been invaded by a multitude of vigorous Drooping Sedge plants which grow rapidly, spread and smother other plants as well as reducing our lawn and borders. Many of the shrubs and trees have become overgrown plus plenty of Sycamore saplings have sprung up which will quickly become trees.

Our Church Warden and other interested members of our congregation agreed that it would be a good idea if we had a Gardening Group to look after the garden. I have agreed to lead the group and plan the way forward to tame the invaders and co-ordinate the work that is needed to be done. The first meeting of the group will be held at 7-30pm on 16th October at The Shepherd and Flock Public House and everyone is invited.

In the meantime we decided to have an Autumn clear up and on the morning of Saturday 9th  September a group of willing(?) volunteers assembled and set to. We concentrated on clearing and levelling the borders along the sides of the car park and tidying the chain link fence. We were blessed with warm sunshine and a nice cooling breeze and worked until 1230 achieving weed free borders. During the following week Annie and I finished the levelling. We then laid a weed block membrane on the bare soil and covered it with pea shingle.

The consensus at the moment is that the borders be planted with native wild hedging but more of that later in the year.

Gillian and Kevin have been busy tidying and planting the borders on the east and north sides of the church walls. I recommend you have a look. They have planted some lovely border plants which are in full bloom. Thank you Gillian and Kevin.

Lastly may I ask if anybody knows if any of the shrubs, roses or ornamental trees in our garden were planted in memory of anyone. Please let myself or Jennifer Patterson know if you do.

.st-g-garden.jpg

“is that a tiger in the bush? No, would you believe it`s a Rose being smothered?”

Bill Thomas.

 

 

 

 

St George's Church, St John's Church, St Mark's Church

Safeguarding

Leave a comment

Most people will be aware of the safeguarding problems that the national church has had.  To help address this, and to help ensure that children and vulnerable adults are kept safe the national church has created new safeguarding procedures, which the Diocese and the Parish have adopted.  The Parish is now in the process of implementing these new procedures.

As a result of this we will be:

  • Drawing up a list of all church activities, together with leaders and assistants.
  • Circulating a “know your safeguarding role” to all people working with children or vulnerable adults.
  • Asking all people working with children or vulnerable adults to sign the new confidential declaration form.
  • Implementing the “Safe Recruitment” procedures for people taking on new roles.
  • Creating risk assessments for all church activities.
  • Working with regular hall bookers to ensure that they have adequate safeguarding procedures and public liability insurance.

It will take us some time to do this, but we have no choice, both because this is best practice, and because we wish to ensure the safety of children and vulnerable adults using our services (in the wider sense) or our buildings.

Alan Crawley