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Dear Church Family friends,

I do hope you have had a great summer and something of a break over the holiday period.

Kathryn and I have had a wonderful holiday: a week in Somerset and a week in Wales and a long weekend with extended family in Farnham!

We had an amazing time with the visit of the Sollentuna Youth Choir from Stockholm, Sweden. Thank you so much to all those who helped to make this happen. It was so good to have encouragement from the Town Council, the Ivy Lane Club and the Farnham Leisure Centre for different aspects of the week. The concert in church on the Saturday evening was a terrific success and the choir’s contribution to worship on the Sunday morning was really memorable.

Now, the new term is upon us.

Here are some key dates for the autumn:

Saturday 13 Sept and Saturday 20 Sept

Heritage Open Days 2pm to 4.30pm

with talks by Philip German (2pm on 13th and 2.30pm on 20th) on the design and construction of the Pavilions 1999 to 2003 and with tower tours and pop up café.

Wednesday 24 Sept

Film Screening at 8pm (Doors open at 7.30pm).

Healing under fire – stories of courage from Gaza

Doctors Under Attack: with special guest speakers who have just returned from Gaza.

Tickets need to be booked. Click QR code.

Admission FREE. Retiring collection.

Saturday 4 Oct

Harvest Decorations: from 9am – see below for details in note from Sian

Concert: Farnham Sinfonia at 7.30pm

Suggested donation £20 incl interval drink

Sunday 5 Oct

Harvest Festival at 10am

Here is a note from Sian to help us with our Harvest Decorations. Our theme this year is “sowing seeds and flourishing”!

Request: we are looking for people, please, to support the decorating of the church for Harvest Festival on the 5th October.

Church decorating will be on the Saturday 4th October from 9.00 onwards.

Please confirm your sign up through whatsapp to Sian Platt +447467592701

We are looking, please, for:

  • people to help set up the decorations on the Saturday 4thOctober
  • people who will volunteer to water them on the 8thOctober and 10th  October, 15th October (check the arrangements, just add water and/or remove anything that’s dead). If the arrangements are watered they should last 2 weeks. NB: this needs to be when people can access the toilets area. We can leave black bags for carrying the waste to the garden bins by the rectory.
  • people who will help take the decorations down Saturday 18th

We would like to encourage people to bring in their produce, something they have grown in their garden, or from hedgerows, or maybe something they made from their produce. Even a photo or picture if they would like (as some gardens may have already lost their foliage etc). Children can also bring pictures to display if they want.

Produce that works best would be: squashes, apples etc,  not something that will instantly get overripe etc!

We would also like to support the new Community Cupboard at The Chantrys this year with gifts of non-perishable goods: tins and packets, please. These can be brought ahead of time or on Harvest Festival Day itself.

Saturday 11 Oct 

Congregational Conversation with coffee and biscuits from 10am to 12noon

“Come Dine with Me” from 7pm – sign up in church as hosts or guests

Saturday 18 Oct 

Crafters and Makers Day with teas and Coffees from 11am to 3pm

Concert at 7.30pm: West End Has Faith (stars from the London stage)

Saturday 22 Nov

TEAR Fund Quiz Night at 7pm with Fish and Chips supper – teams of 6!

Sunday 7 Dec

Townwide Carol Service in the Open Air on Gostrey Meadow from 4pm

with Nicky Gumbel, founder of The Alpha Course.

A great chance to invite family, friends, neighbours and colleagues.

Upcoming Services

Sunday 7 Sept

8am            Holy Communion

10am          All-Age Service with Baptisms

6pm            Evening Service

Sunday 14 Sept

10am          Morning Service with groups for children 0 – Y6

6pm            Evening Service

Sunday 21 Sept

8am            Holy Communion

10am          All-Age Service with groups for children 0 – Y6

6pm            Evening Service

 Sunday 28 Sept

10am          Morning Service with groups for children 0 – Y6

6pm            Evening Service 

Sunday 5 Oct

8am            Holy Communion

10am          All-Age Service with Baptisms

5pm            Evening Service – please note new autumn/winter time!

Sunday 12 Oct

10am          Morning Service with groups for children 0 – Y6

5pm            Evening Service

Sunday 19 Oct

8am            Holy Communion

10am          All-Age Service with groups for children 0 – Y6

5pm            Evening Service

Sunday 26 Oct

10am          Morning Service with groups for children 0 – Y6

5pm            Evening Service

Reflection from Sunday 7 September:

We come this morning to the next part in our story of Jesus as told by Luke, one of the gospel writers.

As we know, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem and, as Luke tells us right at the beginning of the Bible story this morning, large crowds were travelling with him.

These people had seen Jesus, had heard his stories, had seen him heal and restore people who were poorly and no doubt they were fascinated to wonder what he was going to do next.

What he does next in this part of the story is challenge them ask them very directly. He asks them if they’ve really thought about what it might mean to follow him. Not just to wander about listening to him and being entertained by him but committing their lives to him and making some radical changes in their lives and lifestyle.

There’s  something really important here about counting the cost.

Now … I wonder how good we are at counting the cost of things or even knowing the cost of things. I’ve got some items here this morning which I got from a local supermarket and I wonder whether we’ve got any idea how much these things cost.

Let’s have a little quiz:

  • Bar of chocolate
  • Tin of mackerel fillets
  • Box of ritz crackers
  • Jar of marmalade
  • Tin of soup

Let’s have a go at guessing how much each of these things cost.

So, back to the story Jesus gives two examples of how different people might count the cost of different things. The first one is a man building a tower; and the second one is a king going to war. Each of these, we might say, is a project. And each of us in our everyday lives will be dealing with projects. We may not think of them always like that but:

  • getting children to school
  • getting homework done
  • making the tea
  • visiting granny
  • going on holiday

these are all projects of one kind and another … in the sense that we have to sit down and think about how we’re going to do them. And I don’t know whether you noticed but twice in this story, Jesus says “first sit down.”

Counting the cost or thinking about how you’re going to do something properly does involve sometimes “first sitting down” and thinking about it very clearly.

Many of you know we’ve recently been on holiday to Wales. And we had a really fantastic holiday in a beautiful cottage – possibly the best we’ve ever stayed in anywhere. It was amazing … but the journey!? We had planned the journey, we had looked at the map, looked at the timings and the traffic and made a decision about how we were going to get there. The journey, as it turned out, wasn’t a great decision. Because … we got stuck on the M4 and around Cardiff and Swansea, in particular, the traffic was terrible!

So, while we were away we “first sat down” and we thought about how we were going to come home at the end of the week. And we made some strategic decisions about coming a completely different way!

We decided we were coming back through Wales, which was absolutely stunning, along most of the A40 which is an incredible and beautiful road. We even came to the roundabout where Jeremy Clarkson’s got his new pub The Farmer’s Dog. I wanted to go in and have a drink but Kathryn wasn’t having any of it!

Eventually we found our way home in much better time than we had taken to get there.

Now, Jesus, in this conversation, isn’t talking about holidays. He’s not talking about building projects and building towers. He’s not actually talking about going to war.  He’s talking about counting the cost of following him, what might it mean to be a disciple of Jesus, what it might mean to be a Christian today. How do we count the cost?

Somebody said that being a disciple or being a Christian today is as simple as ABCD. What do we mean by that?

A: admit

Admitting that we haven’t always got it right and that often we’ve got it wrong; that we live our way rather than God’s way; that we do our thing rather than his thing … and we just need to Admit that he might know best and want the best for us. A: admit.

B: believe

Believing and trusting that God sent Jesus to live for us to show us how to live and to die for the sins of the world; to realise and recognise Easter is the most important weekend that’s ever been; and that in Jesus‘ life and death and resurrection, God offers this hope and promise for a better future than we could ever imagine.

So that’s A and B … what about C

C: commit

Well, some people say C is commit: make a decision, decide that this is how we want to live, that following Jesus is something we definitely want to do. Certainly C for commit makes perfect sense but, in the light of the story today, we might want to say C also could stand for “count the cost” … because there will be different costs in making that decision to follow him.

It might affect our time:

  • do we make being at church more of a priority than it is at the moment?
  • do we think about our family, our friends, our neighbours and colleagues in a new way? What we can do for them? How we can help them more than we do at the moment?
  • do we think about our money and resources differently? Whether we give any of our money to support the work of the local church? Or do we give money to charitable causes and disaster appeals when we hear something awful has happened in the world? Maybe we’ve not done that before but we might want to think about whether we should.

A B C … and then finally D

D: Do

Do something, do something: don’t just sit here and listen to these words and think well that was all very nice let’s get on to the rest of our day and get off to lunch or get into the garden.

If this is new stuff and we’re thinking about it for the very first time we might need to do something: we might need to talk to somebody, need to follow it up in some way: maybe there are some courses that we could look at or some books we could read? Maybe today could be a really significant day for us?

So ABCD: admit, believe, commit and count the cost and do something: counting the cost “first sit down” and reflect on what Jesus says in this extraordinary and wonderful, but challenging, invitation to follow him.

And finally … how did you get on?

Bar of chocolate 95p

Tin of mackerel fillets £1

Box of ritz crackers £1

Jar of marmalade £1.50

Tin of soup £1.70

 

Kathryn joins me in offering our very best wishes for a great autumn.

David Uffindell

Rector of Farnham

office@standrewsfarnham.org

Our Parish is committed to following the Safeguarding Policies of the Church of England to keep children and vulnerable adults safe from harm.

Concerns of any sort should be reported to The Rector, The Revd. H. David Uffindell (01252 710129), or our Parish Safeguarding Officer, Lizzie Cronin (01252 715412).

The Diocesan Safeguarding Advisor is Jackie Broadfoot (07918 559387)

To view the Church of England Policy Statement ‘Promoting a Safer Church’

click here