Bradfield Holiday Club

Walking into Spiritual Disciplines this August

This August, we'll be taking a rest from most of our usual activities, and simplifying our Sunday worship a bit with everyone looking at the same themes, and with generally shorter services.

We're going to take the opportunity to look at Spiritual Disciplines, focussing on Sabbath, submission, simplicity, solitude, silence and stillness in all our morning gatherings and at Quiet Communion.

Hopefully at least some of them will be available here to listen to again, so do check them out! Otherwise, we hope to see you there!

Battling Giants and Life Together

There's still time to come and learn the lessons of David, facing the giants of fear, temptation, failure (ironically, I failed to put that one on the poster) disappointment, an actual giant, and overcoming them.

This week we faced both temptation AND failure in our Sunday worship, and then ALSO tackled disappointment at Life Together. 

If you haven't heard about it yet, Life Together is our monthly chance to get together, going deeper into worship, into fellowship, prayer, discussion, discovery, and pudding. Elbow-deep.

We hold it on a week-night, normally starting with pudding, coffee, and catching up with each other. We then move into worship, normally of an informal, modern style. Then we gather together to dig into a theme, with thoughts posed and questions raised. Depending where that theme goes, we often end with prayer and/or more worship.

This has not so far been at all what we imagined it would be, but it has been a blessing to those who have come, opening eyes to each other's depths, resilience, bravery, differences, similarities...

We will be taking a break from Life Together in August as we rest, but we are talking about bringing it back in September and October, and looking for a way forward.

Look out for more notice of coming Life Together gatherings, and please join us! 

Life Lately: Messy Church

So we held Messy Church this month on a theme of the Jesus, the Good Shepherd. Despite certain team members dropping the ball (cough...me...cough), we had 36 kids with their adults, joining in with lovely crafts and activities, some of the liveliest worship we've ever had, and a great dinner together.

We hope to be back again in September for another Messy Church event, more crafts, more activities, more worship, more food, and definitely more Jesus.

Hope to see you then!

Big News

If you haven't heard our big, scary, exciting, sad news, Rev'd Chris Hills announced this weekend that she will be retiring at the end of October this year.

We are going to miss Chris and Geoff (and Dillon) immensely, but really feel that God has His hand on this situation, and that this is right for this season.

Please pray for Chris and Geoff as they prepare to hand over, pack up and move, facing leaving the Church family.

Please pray for the rest of us, preparing to pick up everything that needs doing, organising for the vacancy, and all of the discussions, decisions and plans that need to be made, not to mention saying goodbye to Chris and Geoff.

Please pray for all of us, that we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus.

Life Lately: the Celebration weekend

We had a great time over our celebration weekend, marking 90 years with the Queen!

Huge thanks to everyone who helped, and everyone who came along.

Time to Celebrate!

As members of the Church of England, this June we are celebrating 90 years with Queen Elizabeth II! We are doing this with an exhibition held in both of our two churches, and with three special services. Everyone is invited to come to everything, and all admission is free.

Please help us to make this weekend a great time together!

The Exhibitions will be of the life of the Queen, but also the lives of our communities in the last 90 years, with wedding dresses, christening gowns, certificates, photos, and much more memorabilia on display, as well as celebration flowers and music, with refreshments and children's activities.

We are holding three different services in the hopes that there's something for everyone! 

Our Celebration and Thanksgiving will begin with some family-friendly worship and will include children's work, but will be largely a formal-style service of Holy Communion. 

Our All-Age Family Celebration is, as it suggests, suitable for all ages! With songs, story and craft, this will be a shortish, informal-style service. If anyone would like to come in royal fancy-dress, they'd be very welcome, but it's not compulsory! 

The Songs of Praise Celebration will be a largely formal-style service, with lots of hymns and songs from throughout the years, with the Benefice Choir. 

Rev'd Daniel Cozens will be joining us for the Celebration and Thanksgiving, and for the Songs of Praise Celebration. He is a renowned speaker, able to explain the Christian faith with confidence and interest! He has been instrumental in several evangelistic events and groups over the years, and we're really pleased to be welcoming him to join us! 

Before that all starts, we will be kicking off the weekend on Wednesday 8 June with a special opportunity to eat together, chat together, and walk together, along with the Bishop of Chelmsford, Stephen Cottrell. Please join us if you can for any or all of the day!

Please contact the Church Office for more information (see the posters for contact details) and for details of how you can help if you'd like to get involved. Hope to see you there!