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This is a text-only version of an article first published on Monday, 6 November 2017. Information shown on this page may no longer be current.
AFTER three years of Around the Deaneries, during which the Door ran a full page feature on every Deanery in the Diocese, we are now changing our emphasis to focus on our four Archdeaconries. Inspired by the Archdeaconry Plans, this time, the page will feature a range of stories each month, from across the Archdeaconries on a particular theme.
Berkshire:
In south Reading, two parts of one parish are in the bottom 10 per cent of the UK deprivation indices. Churchgoers are working hard to help the families worst affected. Vernon Orr, the Vicar of St Agnes with St Paul and St Barnabas, said that with other churches, they deliver food parcels each week on behalf of Readifood, the Christian Food Bank.
Vernon said: "At harvest local schools gave us a lot of food, some of which we retain and from time to time we are made aware of families in crisis and are able to provide for them, or a parent might come to the vicarage door. "
At Christmas the Lions club has donated food vouchers for big supermarkets to pass on to poorer families. Toys had been donated for children whose parents may not be able to afford a stocking full of presents. Vernon said: "During the year we put on family and community events including our New Year Community Banquet and St George's Day Curry Banquet where we charge £1 a head for a 2 course cooked meal and most of our events for the community are free. The biggest event of the year is the South Reading Churches Fun Day which gets up to 5,000 local people and everything is free - the food the drink and the rides and activities."
He added: "There are different kinds of poverty and this is just one: material poverty. All the different kinds including this plus, aspirational, relational, and spiritual poverty are addressed by the good news of Jesus. Our dream is that as we see God's Kingdom being established here, we would be aiming to play our part in the elimination of systemic poverty."
Similarly at St Matthew's Church in Reading, children and families are supported with holiday clubs and where needed, signposted to the relevant agencies to get help and support. The church is in the middle of a council estate where the vicar, the Revd Pads Dolphin, said many families had fallen foul of benefits sanctions and the bedroom tax and struggled to have enough money for day-to-day essentials. The cost of holiday clubs is kept at just £2 per day.
Pads said "We charge as little as we possibly can, knowing it costs us a lot more to put them on, but we don't want to exclude anyone. We have half term holiday clubs with 150 children every day, with some of their parents and older children on the team, some of them from poorer backgrounds."
Pads told the story of a family of five who knocked on his door unable to put food on the table.
"It doesn't happen every day but it's not uncommon and you hear more and more about families in this kind of trouble. They were sleeping on the floor of someone's flat and couldn't find accommodation through the council."
The Church provided emergency food supplies and contacted the Reading Food Bank to arrange for food supplies for the people and to put them in touch with a Christian advocacy organisation.
Pavement evangelism (Dorchester)
Nick Hance MBE on the experience of volunteering at the Late Night Street Cafe in Witney.
Shortly after moving to Witney, two years ago, I was asked if I would take charge of the Late Night Street Cafe.
My initial reaction was to decline the invitation! My background was as a nuclear physicist working at Harwell and my churchmanship was rather staid and conventional CoE! The idea that I should dispense coffee to late night revellers and engage in pavement evangelism frightened me silly! However I reluctantly agreed to see how four Christians operated the Late Night Cafe.
I had been there for only five minutes when a young woman came up to me and asked if I was a Christian.
"I've got a degree in Physics" she said, "but my parents brought me up as a Jehovah's Witness; but I've been thinking about my faith and I have questions about the Fatherhood and nature of God. "We spent the next 45 minutes having a deep conversation, using scientific language, and I told her that God loved her so much that he came to earth as a human being and died for her on the cross.
He knew exactly why she was confused but He did not judge her. She was delighted with my response.
Then a young man arrived who tipsily introduced himself as "Mr Television". He said he was the grandson of John Logie Baird - the inventor of the television. I asked if he knew where his grandfather's workshop was. No, he didn't but I knew it was in Hastings - because I once lived there.
I told him exactly where he invented the television and said that there was a brass plaque in a shopping arcade dedicated to his grandfather. I realised that God had used my scientific background to evangelise to two people in one evening and that I had enjoyed the encounters.
I could 'do' evangelism!"
Staying in Credit (Oxford)
THE Blackbird Leys Credit Union, which started its life in the Church of the Holy Family on the Oxford estate, needs to merge with a larger organisation to continue to be viable. The union prides itself on offering a local, over-the-counter service to people who may not have access to commercial banks.
Jim Hewitt, the treasurer, said: "There are all kinds of obstacles to using the facilities that banks offer and there is still a great need for people to have a local place where they can make their savings. They need a local place for cashing cheques and getting wages and benefits payments."
In 2013 the Door reported that BBLU had considered merging with the larger Oxfordshire Credit Union. Since then members voted against the proposal. At the same time, Jim says the BBLU had, for a time, been finding it hard to provide services that did not involve making any profit, like cashing benefits cheques, because savings invested in the union were earning very little interest.
"We had to change our procedures to make sure we weren't carrying on with an uncertain level of bad debt," says Jim. "We are now in a position to offer loans again, but because we no longer have funding from the city council, we need to merge with a larger credit union to be viable over the long term. We have strong links with the church and the vicar has expressed an interest in forging stronger links with the credit union. That is part of our ethos of being strongly linked to a range of community organisations. We also have a strong link with the Catholic Church."
The Vicar, the Revd Heather Carter said: "I would indeed be glad if the Credit Union was more formally linked with Holy Family again. It started in our hall. If it were ever possible, I would be glad to have it back 'in house'."
The Lantern (Buckinghamshire)
AS the Door was going to press the Lantern Church in Marlow Bottom was preparing to take its Sunday service out into the community. As well as 20 minutes of worship, the congregation was set to do litter picking, clear the ponds at the village school, deliver flowers to people in sheltered housing and prepare a lunch for the whole church family on Palm Sunday.
The events have been inspired by Sermon on the Mount, especially Matthew 5:16 "In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."
The Lantern was launched on Mothering Sunday 2015 as a monthly gathering alternating between St Mary the Virgin, Marlow Bottom and the village's Methodist Chapel. It is run by husband and wife team, the Revds Graham and Sami Watts, who are jointly Team Vicars at St Mary's. The Lantern attracts 60 to 80 people to its monthly services. Recently, they started a new, second Lantern event with groups for children.
A mum's Bible study group and a 'Pint and a Ponder' group at the pub are also part of the Lantern. The Watts are working very closely with the Methodists and other Christian groups in Marlow Bottom.