August 2010

The Refresh Centre Update

First of all we would like to say an enormous THANK YOU to everyone who took time out to come and help move and create the new reception area. We were all really blessed by the amount of support, hard work, dedication and love that was shown by our church fellowship to help see God’s vision come into fruition.

GOD’S PROVISION
Great news, a request for funding to improve and upgrade the environment for our Tot’s Club, submitted by Andrew White has been granted. This funding is a result of an initial application bid from the church, short listing and then members of the public voting for which organisation they thought should receive the money. The Tot’s Club was up against two larger organisations and yet they still won So as a church we praise the Lord together for His continued provision.

VOLUNTEER REQUESTS
The new reception area is now up and running, however there is still quite a lot that is needed to be done before the official launch of the centre on the 4th of September.

So once again we would like to invite as many of you as possible to take part in a work day to take place on the 21st August. Handy men/ladies are desperately needed to build and create safety barriers in the large hall as this is the main objective of the day. Also help moving the television from the entrance lobby of the church to the small hall and many cleaning and refurbishment jobs are needed to be completed. So any budding electricians, tea makers, artists, labourers and cleaners are all welcomed.

The pastoral team would also like anyone who feels they could give up some of their time to make tea/coffee and chat to people during week day mornings. As the centre grows more volunteers are needed to ensure we can keep up with demand as well as provide a good service. So if you feel you have a gift in chatting to people, listening and making drinks please contact Lynda Bryant.

PRAYER REQUESTS
As many of you know the car park area is often used by shoppers and gym users throughout the week; this was not as much as a problem when our buildings were not being used but is becoming an increasing stressful situation for members of our church and groups who attend during the week. Please can we ask for prayers on this; we need wisdom for the best course of action to take to help relieve abusive behaviour to church users as well as keeping the car park clear for those who are genuinely using our halls. Some suggestions have been permit parking only, changing the layout, increased signage indicating the car park as private use only, and the use of a clamping company. Please give any suggestions to Hannah. May God’s love prevail in this situation.

DATES FOR YOUR DIARIES:
21st August: Work Day at the church, starting at 10:00am.
4th September: Refresh Open Day, starting at 10:00am.

This is a celebration of what the centre already provides as well as an opportunity to publicise this to the community. All groups that take place under the Refresh Centre banner are invited to have a display; this could be a dance, a board, an interactive display or anything you like. The idea is to raise awareness of what happens in the centre and to promote your groups. It is also a prime opportunity to ask our local community what they feel they need from the centre. So again all members of the church fellowship are invited to attend and plenty of volunteers will be needed to help out with refreshments etc..

Finally as many of you know budgets are extremely tight in our current financial climate. Recent risk assessments have highlighted areas that need urgent repair or replacement. This includes some quite expensive items such as doors, flooring and screening. Unfortunately even when the different areas of church funding (buildings and outreach) club together many of these are not covered within this year’s budget provision. We are therefore requesting that people prayerfully consider donating some money towards these repairs and refurbishments as many issues are within the large sports hall and affect not only the centre’s children’s work but also the church and Girl’s Brigade. If you feel led to help then please put your offering into an envelope and mark it ‘Refreshing the buildings’.

Communication continues to be a priority and for those of you who would like to know where to get current updates about what is happening in the Refresh Centre we would like to highlight where you can find the information you are looking for:

• During the week a receptionist will be able to help with general enquires.

• Church members will be updated about the continued development of the centre through church meetings.

• The Newsletter will have recent updates on the development of the centre for church members who cannot attend meetings, as well as prayer requests, volunteer requests and dates for your diary.

• All group leaders are represented at the Refresh Board meetings and you can always ask Sue McCarthy or me (Hannah Morgan) for further information or an agenda point to be included when needed. Minutes are taken and available for any interested parties.

• Please also feel free to speak to me direct about anything to do with the Centre, contact details in the church directory, as I am more than happy to speak to you

If anyone has any other suggestions as to how communication can be improved please speak to me as we are keen that all members feel well informed. I am sure you all appreciate that keeping a whole church congregation constantly informed is an enormous and difficult task and we ask for your patience, grace and prayers as we continue to try and develop this.

Thank you so much for your continued help and support. We pray that God continues to use the gifts and talents within our church and the centre’s partners to see His Kingdom come to Belvedere.
Hannah Morgan

As it is so important that we are able to open our doors every morning, because we wish to serve our community, I decided to include Lynda’s plea as well as Hannah’s!
Editor!

'Can you make tea, coffee ........ and chat?'

As you know the Refresh Centre is to open every morning Monday to Friday between 10.00am -12.30pm for people to drop in for tea, coffee and a chat. We would like to expand our Refresh Centre team of helpers. If you feel you are able to offer any morning to come and help out in this way, or you would like any more information, please speak to me.
Lynda Bryant

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DO YOU DARE TO......

ACT JUSTLY…..AND REPENT?

The following paragraphs were taken from a reflective article published by The Fairtrade Foundation following the lectionary reading for 7 March 2010 (Isaiah 55:1-9) which speaks of an invitation to the thirsty and a vision of abundant provision. Be warned though: to heed the message within the article will involve all caring peoples to think differently and make drastic changes to their lifestyle, but I believe this is one area which needs to be addressed if we really want to help bring about God’s Kingdom here on earth:
Derek Fraser

Atrocities and disasters have always been prevalent – as has the belief that people get what they deserve. Jesus emphatically rejects the theology that suffering is a punishment for sin. He is clear that instead of passing judgement on others when we see their misfortunes, we are to look to our own repentance, lives and actions. What do we understand by repentance? What do we believe about the suffering in our world?

Small farmers in the Global South have been among the first to feel the effects of changing weather patterns – droughts, floods and shifting seasons all affecting their crops and livelihoods. But they are not the ones primarily responsible for their problems. Man-made climate change is largely a consequence of over-consumption and dependence on fossil fuels in the Global North. Yet often we look at their poverty and fail to make the connection with our own – idolatrous? – pursuit of an unsustainable lifestyle.

Jesus warns that if we do not change our ways, all will suffer. But there is hope: God is a God who longs for us to repent, change and be saved. In The Blue Mountains of China Mennonite author Rudy Wiebe says, ‘In a Jesus society, you repent, not by feeling bad, but by thinking different’. At the heart of our faith is the good news of a God who longs to give us abundance, as seen in the Isaiah passage and in Jesus who came ‘that they might have life, life in all its fullness’ (John 10:10).

The Fairtrade movement echoes this belief in abundant living and represents a different way of thinking about international trade. It is an alternative model which puts poverty alleviation, sustainable development, environmental protection and social justice at the heart of international trade. It is predicated on the belief that we can and must act justly to make a better world.

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JUST A MOMENT.

It starts with a change
So outwardly significant
That no one would notice
Except the person
Behind you in the aisle.

Just a moment
When instead of seeing
Rows of labels
On a supermarket shelf
You imagine the people
Behind them,
Tilling the earth,
Sowing the seed,
Gathering the crops.

And you pause,
Wondering,
What their names are,
Where they live
What difference it will make

If your hand picks up
This box instead of that,

Wondering: how do I
Love these neighbours?
Can I help change
This child’s long journey for water,
Her mother’s lack of healthcare,
The prospect her father faces
Of another year unable
To feed his family well?

Just a moment
And the person behind you,
Her impatient baby
Squirming in the trolley,
May never realise
That in that brief hesitation
A life hung in the balance.

Christian Concern for One World.

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A Book Review

The Genesis Enigma.

By Andrew Parker - (Doubleday. ISBN 978-o-385-61520-4)

Do you ever wonder at the apparent conflicts between the story of Creation as written in Genesis 1 and the theory of evolution as broadly believed by many scientists? Or, perhaps you are confused by the concept of the Beginning of Time and the Big Bang Theory? If so, read on.

You may recall the talk that John Edwards and I gave at Café Church last summer, where I spoke of the difficulties that the concept of creation OR evolution gave me, and how I came to reconcile the two. Well, I am only one of many scientists who have pondered these various questions. Recently, I have been reading the above book. Besides being an Honorary Research Fellow at Oxford University and a Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the author is a Research Leader at The Natural History Museum. He confesses that he is NOT a Christian, so, as he says in his preface: “…I was considering the scientific account first, which ruled out partiality or clouded judgement”.

Perhaps because of this, I found it incredibly interesting to read his thoughts and conclusions concerning the many parallels between the Genesis explanation of Creation and the Scientific Theory of Evolution. As you progress through the book, you have to ask yourself how Moses (or the people of that period of time), having no understanding or knowledge of science whatsoever, could have thought up a story of creation that was in such close agreement with today’s Theory of Evolution. The conclusion that he comes to, is that the original writer(s) of Genesis must have been inspired – but by who, or what?

His answer to this question appears in the penultimate paragraph, where he says: “The conclusion is that this page of the Bible could, perhaps more than any other, represent God’s hand in the Bible. The true account of how we came to exist may have been handed to humans by God”. What a fantastic conclusion to come from a learned man who states that does not “need the comfort of religion”. I strongly recommend this book to any of you who have a scientific/questioning mind.
Derek Fraser

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BELVEDERE BAPTIST CHURCH

THE SECOND FIFTY YEARS

The First World War caused great upheaval in the church’s life: Even the next minister, the Rev. A.E. Hastings, who came in 1915, worked part-time at Vickers’ munitions factory. In 1918 the church welcomed, as its new pastor, the Rev. H. W. Wetherall, but his must be the shortest pastorate in the church’s history; in the same month as he was welcomed, October, he died, a victim of the notorious Spanish ‘flu epidemic of that year.

Following the war, church life took some years to return to normal; the Sunday School was re-established and was so successful that, by 1921, a disused Army hut was purchased and re-sited by the church to help accommodate the numbers of children attending; the church band was re-formed the following year and Mrs Smith remembers that about this time a new organ was installed and dedicated to the memory of those who had died in the war.

The work amongst young people particularly flourished at this time. As well as buying the Army hut, the church made use of the nearby Coffee Tavern for its young people’s meetings and in 1928 both Boys’ and Girls’ Brigade companies were formed. By the ‘30s Belvedere was rapidly losing its rural image.

In 1939 the road where the church is situated (the main road through Belvedere village) had its name changed. To avoid confusion with other Bexley Roads, ‘Nuxley Road’ was substituted - Nuxley being the name for a nearby, by this time largely built-over heathland – where Belmont Primary School is now situated.

The church magazine for October 1939 – ‘The Herald’, gives a sense of the fear and dislocation caused by the onset of war. The minister, Rev. A. J. Barnard, began his letter: ‘My Dear Friends, I little thought when I wrote my September letter that the first Sunday of the month should be disturbed by war.’ Later he goes on ‘…. I am confident not half so much of the strength of Britain, or the justice of our cause as I am of God’s goodness and mercy. We all need a protection mightier than Britain or Britain’s cause can afford.’

Lighting restrictions meant that the ‘evening’ service on a Sunday was brought forward to 3.30 pm and a note to the children in that edition says: ‘Many of you have gone away to live in other parts of the country, but we hope that this Herald will reach most of you …. we at Belvedere will be praying for you and we hope to see you all back again soon.’

Amongst the many others joining up Dr. Kenneth Seal, then a member at Belvedere, went to join a medical team in Aden. After the Battle of Britain some children returned, but were evacuated again at the commencement of night bombing raids in 1941. Belvedere’s proximity to the Thames was a handicap and it suffered badly from German ‘planes using the river to guide them to and then back from London, dropping bombs on their way.

On Thursday, 20th March 1941 the church itself was hit and destroyed in one of these raids. At first, services were held on Sunday afternoons in the Congregational church and the Sunday School was able to meet in the premises of a private school in Woolwich Road. Rev. Barnard left in July 1942 and in 1943 Rev. Walter Davies began his ministry to a church without its own premises. The Strict Baptist Chapel offered the use of part of their building and Queen Street Baptist Church, in Erith, made their baptistery available. The Sunday School again closed during 1944 because of the evacuation of children in response to the raids using ‘flying bombs’.

The remains of the bombed building were cleared in early 1949 and the foundation stone for the new premises was laid on 4th March, 1950. After ten years of using other church buildings and the local Co-op hall the new church was opened for worship in September, 1950. In hindsight, almost to emphasize that a ‘church’ is made of people not bricks, it is interesting that Rev. Davies’s main thrust for 1947 is recorded as being the deepening of its spiritual life. ‘The church’ continued to thrive, although without a building, and when he departed
after a ten-year ministry he left behind a strong fellowship, albeit now with a new church building.

The new building (at this stage the church and small hall – the larger hall not being added until 1957/58, cost £13,561.8s.4d to build and equip; of this, the War Damage Commission contributed £9,882.4s.9d and the church the remainder. The larger hall, behind the church, was built during the ministry of the Rev. Victor Sumner, who worked hard to raise the funds to pay for it. Once built, film shows were a regular event – partly to raise money to pay for the hall, but partly also to give local people a feel that it was ‘their’ church and to use it as a community resource.

Four years short of its century, the Sunday School, along with the trend nationally, began to meet in the morning rather than the afternoon, in 1959; and after a ‘Pulpit Exchange’ with a church in Reading, Massachusetts – the notion of an all-age Bible School was introduced in the centenary year, 1963. At that time too, the membership stood at 220.