Letter to the Church
August 2023
Dear Church Family,
It’s a while since I’ve put finger to keyboard to share what’s happening in both family and church life. Hence this longer than usual update. August is a different sort of working month as there are fewer meetings and activities meaning more time for reflection and planning. So, a few things to give thanks for and to look forward to in the coming months.
Alpha
We’ve run two Alpha courses so far this year, a whole-church-Alpha leading up to Easter (with over a hundred attending) and then a smaller invitational Alpha leading up to the summer. Sixteen guests attended this, several of whom will continue to meet in the autumn.
Moving forward I would love courses to be running regularly and to encourage anyone who is new to the church to take part – even if they are already a Christian – as it’s a great way to refresh faith and get to know others in the church. Running frequent courses also helps to establish a faith sharing culture in the church and make it easier to invite a friend or colleague. Our next course will run from early October.
Refreshing our Home Groups
The break from home groups while we ran the whole church Alpha created space to take a fresh look at our small group structure. Around half our congregation is part of a homegroup and many find these vital for encouragement and support during the ups and downs of daily life.
The challenge is, however, to keep our groups fresh and vibrant. So, over the past few months and with the support of Guildford Diocese we’ve been meeting with our home group leaders to evaluate our current structure and content. Your responses to the ‘three quick questions’ survey I sent out recently has helped us to refresh our existing groups and form new ones. If you are already part of a home group, we’ll let you know of any changes made to your group in the coming days. We are pleased to be forming a number of new groups as these are so valuable for pastoral support and growth in God’s word.
Church Weekend Away (15th-17th September)
Only a few weeks before just over a hundred of us go away to Cloverley Hall in Shropshire. This will be our first weekend away since High Leigh eight years ago and ten years since the Ashburnham weekend when Rosie and I first arrived in Fleet. Really looking forward to the fun and fellowship, and to Sue Rinaldi from Fleet Baptist developing our theme: Courageous Faith. There will be a 10am service at church on the Sunday for those who won’t be with us.
We’re Creating Electricity!
As of half an hour ago at time of writing our newly installed solar panels were switched on. The sun is shining and we have already generated 10.8kWh of our own electricity (enough to power an average house for 3 hours). My thanks to the Eco Team for your hard work, and to David Alston and Alan Price for overseeing the installation. A huge thank you, too, to all who gave so generously towards the project. Moving forward this will make a big difference to both our energy bills and carbon footprint.
Teaching series this Autumn
It’s been good to journey through Paul’s letter to the Philippians over the past eight weeks. Between now and Christmas we’ve got a couple of teaching series planned.
Our first is Worship in a Warming World. Theologian and writer Richard Bauckham asks: ‘How should Christians read the Bible in an age of ecological disaster?’ The purpose of this series is to help us understand how we can worship with confident faith in the midst of all the change and upheaval that lies ahead, and how we can view the crisis from the perspective of God’s plans and purposes for our planet.
The second series we’ve entitled: ‘Called to …’ As followers of Jesus we are called to love, to give, to stay safe, to pray, to serve and to grow. These Sundays will get us thinking about our giving, our serving, safeguarding, prayer and discipleship. The first Sunday in the series, Called to Love, will consider our welcome of those who are LGBTQ+. There has been much in the news recently about discussions in the church regarding the marriage of same-sex couples. As our four partner denominations are all reflecting on where they stand, I think it is appropriate to address this and outline our response as a church. We will also offer once more the five week Living in Love and Faith course we ran last year. The aim of this course is to provide a safe space to those who would find it helpful to talk about this further and will take place on Sunday afternoons from Nov 5th .
Youth at satellites
A couple of Sundays ago we heard from our young people fresh back from the Satellites Youth Festival in Somerset. Seventeen youth and adults were there. We heard amazing testimonies of changed lives through the powerful teaching and worship. It was four days of God encounter for all our young people and an encouraging end to the year for Yener and the youth team.
Our Family News
And lastly, it’s been a busy month for the Butler family with our oldest son Luke marrying Jil in London in mid-July. It was a fantastic day and we loved meetings Jil’s family over from Switzerland. The day before the wedding Johnny returned from six-months in Paraguay. He had been working as a teaching assistant in the school in Asuncion he left when he was five years old. He starts his course in Film Studies at Bournemouth University next month. Then, after our relaxing family camping holiday near Land’s End (with the usual UK summer offering of sun and rain) our daughter Jess and husband Sam left their jobs in the NHS for Gold Coast, Australia. They promise to be back in the next two years, but whatever happens we look forward to visiting them sometime next year.
Meanwhile my mother continues in Hill House Nursing Home on the road to Farnham. She loves it when she can worship with us as she did this Sunday (staying on to watch the World Cup Final) and she always enjoys visits from her Church on the Heath friends.
So that’s it for this catch up. Psalm 16:6 says, ‘The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.’ Rosie and I continue to be grateful for God’s call on our lives to be part of our amazing Church on the Heath family and we look forward to all the challenges and blessings that lie ahead.
