Life recently...

Between everything that has been going on, and updating the website ( do let us know what you think!) we now have even more to share of what we've been doing.

Bradfield Open Gardens
The Open Gardens event, put on by the Friends of St. Lawrence Church, Bradfield, was a great event! Thank you to everyone who joined in, either paying to see the gardens, working hard to get the gardens ready, or working on the event itself. The overall profit was £1766 which is one of the highest ever. This was the 21st time the event had taken place, and in total it has raised £28,448 between 1991 and 2014. The money will now be used to clean and repair the stained glass windows of St Lawrence Church.

As Sue, our Churchwarden at Bradfield said:

On behalf of the Congregation of St Lawrence Church, may I thank Norma Barrow and all her team. Also the garden owners for a wonderful day on Sunday 22nd June. The gardens looked beautiful and the funds raised were the second best ever.
I know the hard work which is put in by Norma to make sure it all runs smoothly and to provide lunches as well as making sure the Barrow garden looks great.
Thank you for all your efforts

Sue Reeve

Churchwarden

We agree! Thank you to everyone! If you missed it, or you want to re-live it, click here to see a small tonnage of photos of the event.

Bradfield Friends are also running another event soon! Con Spirito will be having a concert at Bradfield Church, followed by a finger buffet. Please click here for more information, and do get your tickets early!

Claire's Ordination
Claire Scargill was ordained as a Deacon last Saturday (28 June) at Chelmsford Cathedral. See here for some pictures from the day. Claire also sent me this photo this week, which, if you're eagle-eyed you'll note includes herself, Chris, and the Bishop!

Thank you, Claire, and congratulations!

Claire's Ordination

Just in case you couldn't be there this morning, here are a few pictures from Claire's ordination!

Maintenance

Hello!

If you find things looking a little weird here for a few days, it's because we're trying to get this all working better. Hopefully it'll make all of our lives easier!

Thank you!

Who's coming with me?

Spring Harvest 2015 - Extended Promo from Spring Harvest on Vimeo.

Our story

Hello! I hope you're enjoying Mission week. I started writing this a while ago, as an encouragement before the Mission, and then never had time to post it. However, with a moment free today, it seemed like the right thing to do. After all, who else is going to make spurious links for you between Jesus and pop-culture...

Hello friends!

So since this last post, I have been thinking a lot about...Finding Nemo. Yes. That's not how you thought that sentence would end.

If you haven't seen it, it's the story of a little clown fish, called Nemo, who is an only child (fish...whatever) to an exceptionally nervous clown fish called Marlin. Nemo gets kidnapped off his coral reef, and taken back to a dentist's aquarium where he meets a bunch of other fish. Meanwhile, his father sets out to bring him back. To find Nemo, if you will.

It's jaunty, and it's heartfelt, and it's beautifully animated, so I really can't recommend it enough, but there's also a bit towards the end that I've been thinking about. See, Marlin's journey to rescue Nemo isn't easy. Of course it isn't. It's complicated and twisty and difficult. The bit that I've been thinking about a lot, though, comes towards the end.

(I should say, if you really don't want to know what happens in Finding Nemo, you might want to stop reading now.)



Nemo hears the story of his father coming to rescue him, and he just can't believe it. Everything that he has done, just for his little fish.

Now, you might wonder, how every anyone found this out to tell him. How does a pelican hear that a clown fish is crossing the ocean. That's a bit far fetched...

(Sorry about the quality of this one!)


They tell the story. They pass it on, one to another to another. And not because they have been compelled to, or because they have any idea of the one fish who needs to hear the story, but because it's a brilliant story. An exciting story. A story that anyone would hope was true for them. That one tiny person (fish...) is worth crossing oceans for. Worth battling sharks and traversing jelly fish and fighting on through. He is worth it, and friends, so are we.

Our story is one of a Father who travelled through much more, and did much more, and would have done it all had it only been for one of us. Isn't that amazing?

"I mean, it sounds like this guy will stop at nothing to find his son..."

"That's one dedicated father, if you ask me."

Sam spoke a few weeks ago (30 March 2014) at Bradfield about how we need to keep telling our story. That we have a story to pass on. That it's worth telling.

But it's not worth telling just because it's exciting, or because it's interesting. People haven't died for this story because it's a great narrative or because of the thrilling characters.

It brings hope. And it brings life.

So, as Mission week draws to a close, let's not forget the importance of passing on the story. Every day. Not just with Mission team members at special events, but all the time. Telling our story. Telling God's story.

He planted a witness in Jacob,

set his Word firmly in Israel,

Then commanded our parents

to teach it to their children

So the next generation would know,

and all the generations to come—

Know the truth and tell the stories

so their children can trust in God...

Psalm 78:5-7

Mission

The Mission pages are finally up and running on the website.

Please use them to find out what's going on, to invite your family and friends, and to pray for all of our events and everyone who might go along to them.

There are also copies of all of the current fliers on the website. Please feel free to send them on to friends by email, over facebook and in any other way you fancy!

There are more posts planned here about the Mission, but if you have any thoughts or things you'd like to say to encourage and inspire, please do contact the Church Office and we'll try to include it right here!

Busy busy busy...

Friends, Mission Week is on its way, and it really isn't that far off. From May 10-18 we have a big, fat excuse to tell our friends and neighbours about Jesus. I get all twirly and excited when we start talking about Mission, partly because I was involved with some really great ones down at my university, and I start using words like 'awesome' unironically and sounding like the turtles in Finding Nemo.

)

So. Anyway. If you know me, you'll know that things in my life are a little extra like whoah  at the moment, as we're trying to move house, and I am designing an awful lot of the publicity for the Mission. Seems I have serious thrill issues.

So, I 'm concerned that I could easily, despite my Mission-themed excitement, get a little bogged down in the here and now and packing boxes and my computer crashing, and then emerge at the end of the Mission to find that I was so busy doing stuff, that I forget to actually talk to people. I know. Crazy.

However, when I finally do remember to talk to people, how am I actually going to do that? I mean, I'm excellent at talking about pasta and cake and The Musketeers and the early years of Disney and why Comic Sans and I have issues...but when it comes to talking about the most important things in life, I get a bit like whoah.

There is, however, good news. First, we in the Manningtree Benefice are putting on a three-session course on sharing our faith. Perfect! Each session will be held both during the day and in the evening to hopefully allow everyone who would wish to come along. More details will be published really soon, but please do think about coming to this. It'll be really helpful, practical and enabling.

Second, I came across this today. It's a video of Bear Grylls, Christian adventuring-outdoorsy-explorer, chatting with Stephen Fry, who amongst other things is well known for being an atheist.

)

Let's all take a second to be blown away at how respectful they are to each other. Isn't it refreshing? I found it via this website, where Krish Kandiah says: "I wish all Christian / Atheist Conversation could take place with this kind of spirit and tone."

 I really recommend that you watch the video, and that you read Krish's article, because both are incredibly heartening, and make me remember that it's really not that hard to talk about faith.

Awesome.