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.
Tag Archives: Pride
Sunday Service – Pride 24
Below is the Sunday service. First, here are the notices:
Notices
Giving
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Service
Pride
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.
Your joint July/August Magazine is here
Our summer holidays parish magazine is here, covering the months of July and August.
With summer here there is plenty going on both inside and out, and among the events featured in this issue are a free Barn Dance at St Mark’s on the evening of July 14th to celebrate the 140th birthday of the church (see page 26) and a performance of Doorstep Duets by Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures in support of a coffee morning for the parish on July 15th (see page 14).
There is also news of a talk on July 21st about how to support people with autism (page 36), family events run by Farnham Maltings at the churches (page 14), events at the Hale Family Centre (page 24), the return of Messy Church on July 9th and Pride services on August 20th (both on page 23).
Among the other articles and notices is a report on our fantastic fete (page 8) and the Christian Aid concert (page 12), plus Craig’s relicensing (page 11) and the Badshot Leader is back again (from page 19) with information on local developments, the environment, the Badshot Bloomers and a fascinating history of Walter Tice.
To read it, click here:
Celebrate Pride and God’s Love
Join us to celebrate Pride on Saturday, August 8, here online from 10am.
August 8 should have been marked by a Surrey Pride march and celebrations on the street but these had to be cancelled because of Covid-19. However, we are celebrating the LGBTI+ community and God’s wonderful, inclusive love with an online service.
There will be music, art, photography, prayers, poetry, Bible readings and reflections from individuals including a former curate of St George’s whom some of you may remember – Rev’d Paul Holt – along with Sara Gillingham, a leading intersex campaigner and great friend of the parish; Jayne Ozanne who runs the Ozanne Foundation which works with religious organisations to eliminate discrimination based on sexuality or gender; and Dr Ash Brockwell, a transgender man and educator who has contributed both a poem and hymn to the service.
There is a moving reflection on growing up as a gay man from James Muller, a Farnham photographer whose work features regularly in Vogue Italia, and who has kindly contributed many of his beautiful photographs; there is art from local people, including paintings by members of Farnham Heath End School’s LGBT+ group, and stones painted with rainbow messages to indicate God’s love for everyone.
Stella Wiseman, who leads inclusion work in the parish, explains the thinking behind the service: “The church as a whole doesn’t have a great track record in welcoming people who do not fit into a heterosexual, cis-gender box, and indeed has caused great harm to many LGBTI+ people. This is something we need to repent of and make amends for. We have no right to limit God’s love and welcome like this and to damage and destroy people in the name of God is appalling.
“Thankfully, things are changing and many churches, such as those in this parish, are more welcoming and inclusive now. Some of us would have been walking under the Christians at Pride banner in Woking on August 8th but Covid-19 has put paid to that. So instead we are organizing this lovely, colourful service online and we are delighted that members of the local church are taking part along with friends from other churches. We are really grateful to them for giving up their time to share with us their experience of God’s love and welcome and grateful too for the art, photography and music.
“Pride in Surrey is taking a Pride-themed vehicle around the county that weekend too and will be live-streaming and the parish has just been asked to send a contribution to the online Pride. The Pride vehicle will be making its way to Farnham on Sunday 9th at 10am so watch out for that too. You can find out more on prideinsurrey.org/ontheroad.”
Everyone is invited to join the service online here on Saturday, August 8 , from 10am and on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/badshotleaandhale
Painting a rainbow
We are holding a Pride Service online on Saturday, August 8, in celebration of the LGBTI+ community and God’s love for us all.
We’d like people to paint rocks in rainbow colours, with pictures, designs or messages of love and inclusion on them. We plan to have the painted rocks at St Mark’s like the one in the picture below, painted by Aly Buckle. Or how about some other art to celebrate inclusion, like the ones above which were painted by members of the LGBT+ group at Farnham Heath End School?
We will tell you when to bring your rocks and other art and take a video of people bringing them to the church and include the video in our Pride service. If you can’t come yourself send Stella a photo of the rocks/pictures you have painted.
More on the Pride Service shortly.
The Parish of Badshot Lea and Hale 