Category Archives: St George’s Church

Apple Day, Craft, Harvest, Inclusion, Prayer, St George's Church, St John's Church, St Mark's Church

Your September Magazine is here

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The September issue of the parish magazine is out now and you can download it below.

It’s a bumper issue which looks forward to what is going on this autumn. We start with a quiet morning for Creationtide at St John’s on September 2nd when Craig Nobbs will be leading us in reflecting about our care for God’s earth (see page 13). We will look at generosity and gratitude on two Sundays – September 10th and 17th (page 22) – and this month we start a series on exploring prayer, beginning on 20th when we go into Farnham Park to encounter God in nature (also page 22). Then there is our September craft market at St Mark’s on September 16th (page 48); Apple Day and Harvest Festival on 24th (page 12); and the Harvest Supper at St George’s on 29th (page 16).

It’s not all just about what’s on – among the articles you will find ones on home groups, autism, diversity, ordinations, why we hire out our halls, dog training and more, plus we are delighted to have the Badshot Leader right at the heart of the magazine, with information on The Kiln, the Community Garden and Aldershot Model Car Club.

All this plus local businesses who do so much to support our magazine by placing advertisements in it. Please do use their services.

Happy reading!

September 2023Download
Inclusion, LGBTI+, Services, St George's Church, St John's Church, St Mark's Church

Pride

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We will be celebrating Pride on June 23rd at all three of our churches and online, with special services, prayers and readings in support of and celebrating the LGBTQI+ community.

We are sometimes asked why we hold these services. Pride services are an opportunity to celebrate LGBTQI+ people in their fullness, to look back on strides toward equality, and to imagine a world where celebration and full inclusion is the norm, not an exception. 

The Christian response to LGBTQI+ people has not generally been one of welcome and the Church as a whole has not felt like a safe space for many people. In fact, Christians have used the Bible as a weapon and the church has contributed to the political, relational and spiritual dehumanizing of LGBTQI+ people.

Our support for Pride is not just a way of saying sorry for the Church’s harmful actions – some of which have led to the death of some of God’s beloved children – but also an opportunity to denounce oppressive practices and ideology while also becoming more fully human ourselves. For when we dehumanise others we reduce our own humanity.

In these services we repent of the past and we look with hope to the future. We stand with people who identify as LGBTQI+ and proclaim loudly that all people are loved by God and all people are welcome here. God is Love and we are all fearfully and wonderfully made.

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

Father’s Day

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It’s Father’s Day this coming Sunday – 18th – and we will be having services at all three churches to give thanks for fathers, grandfathers and other important men in our lives. Then tuck into freshly made bacon butties (vegetarian and vegan options available).

The services are: St John’s – 9.30am; St George’s – 10am; St Mark’s – 11am.

All welcome.

Craft, Social Events, St George's Church

Parish fete

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Our fabulous parish summer fete is back, this year on June 10th at St George’s, Badshot Lea, from 12-4pm.

There will be all sorts of stalls with things to buy, games to play, delicious food and drink, a craft market and a grand raffle. It’s a proper community fete with people from across the villages which make up our parishes taking part.

So please, put the date in your diary, and also, if you’d like to run a stall, help set up, clear up, generally get stuck in, let us know. Email Maxine Everitt to find out more.

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

APCM 2023

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Our Annual Meeting of Parishioners, for anyone living in the parish, takes place on Sunday, May 21st, at 3pm at St Mark’s. This is the meeting at which churchwardens are elected. This will be followed immediately by the Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM) which is for those on the parish electoral roll.

The documents for both meetings are below and can be downloaded.

2023-agenda-for-annual-meeting-of-parishioners-1Download
agenda-for-apcm-sunday-21-5-23-1Download
2022-minutes-of-the-annual-meeting-of-parishionersDownload
2022-minutes-of-the-annual-parochial-church-meetingDownload
pcc-of-the-ecclesiastical-parish-of-badshot-lea-and-hale-signed-accounts-20225049Download
report-document-2023Download
music, Social Events, St George's Church

Concert for Christian Aid

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It’s Christian Aid Week next week and we are holding a concert to raise money for this vital charity on Friday, May 26th at 7.30pm at St George’s.

There will be music from soloists and groups, including Saxooma saxophone quartet, choirs, a singalong, dancing, a raffle, drinks and nibbles. Tickets are £5 (children free) on the door.

This year, Christian Aid Week is focusing on Malawi where food, fuel, fertiliser and school fees have doubled in price in the last 12 months, and hard-working farmers are seeing their harvests fail as the climate crisis brings increasingly erratic weather. The impact of the recent Cyclone Freddy in Malawi has been devastating. Floods have washed away crops, over 500,000 people have been displaced and hundreds have lost their lives.

Please support Christian Aid at this concert and via their online appeal here.

Children and Youth, St George's Church, St John's Church

St George’s Day – services and a dragon

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St George’s Day is on Sunday, April 23, and you are invited to celebrate England’s patron saint at services at St John’s, Hale, at 9.30am, and St George’s, Badshot Lea, at 10am. TS Swiftsure, Farnham Sea Cadets, will take part in the service at St George’s.

St George has been venerated as a saint in England since the 9th century CE though he was actually born in the 3rd century CE in Cappadocia (modern day Turkey), and was probably an officer in the Roman army. He was a Christian and it seems he was killed in the early 4th century, maybe on April 23, because he wouldn’t worship pagan gods.

St George is meant to have killed an evil dragon but the story about this actually originates several centuries after his death. Nevertheless the story stuck and the image of St George defeating the dragon appears on the George Cross, an award created in 1940 by King George VI to reward acts of great courage in times of danger.

This doesn’t stop the friendly St George’s dragon coming to church however.