Dear all,

It is heart-warming to know how much you are all caring, sharing, supporting, praying, worshipping and growing in fellowship in Christ. We’re hearing more and more stories of church members connecting together in new ways. We know that many of you have welcomed a call from a home group leader and the response to ‘would you like to fold in to a home group’ has been amazing. Thank you once again to our home group leaders. You play a crucial role in the leadership of BHC as we head into the future.

We’re gradually expanding the faith, teaching, worship and fellowship that we can offer online. We’re doing this because we think that our church family might be doing these online things for a while to come. We’re offering some online short-courses and one off practical faith events; we’d encourage you to be part of them, partly to bless those who are putting such effort into them for all of us.

We’d like to give particular thanks this week for Matt Toombs. Matt and the Explorers team create an incredible weekly ‘padlet’ for the young people. The work behind it is phenomenal. Also, a quiet thanks to Jacqui R and all the wonderful saintly supporters who are caring for many in and around Hambledon, Hydestile, Enton and beyond. Do pray for these people.

We’re beginning to turn our thoughts to what ‘normal’ life, worship, faith and fellowship might look like in the months to come and even further ahead too. Like much of the UK exploring how life might be changing; we’re asking what “BHC MkII” might look like under the Holy Spirit’s leadership. Some research has been started into this and you can read an interesting theological and practical article which has been forwarded to us by Rev Catherine McBride.

https://www.dur.ac.uk/digitaltheology/ewo/sections/

What can we return to? What have we learnt God is growing afresh and which we need to explore further? What can we set aside as we live together for the Kingdom of God and look forward to Christ’s Return? If you’ve got thoughts, do send an email to Simon and Simon.

In the love of Christ,

Simon

5 TIPS FOR PARENTS IN ISOLATION WITH A TEENAGER

Anto Ficatier, Youth Minister at Busbridge & Hambledon Church

1. Acknowledge their feelings on a frequent basis
Teenagers are at a funny crossroads when it comes to feelings. They have the verbal ability to share what they experience but at the same time they tend to think (especially boys!) that it is really lame to externalize what they go through emotionally. In times of crisis like the one we are facing now, it is fundamental to make sure you acknowledge your teenagers’ feelings.

So together with your teenager, map out all the different feelings he/she has experienced recently. Complement it with a tool called a “wheel of emotions”. I personally like to use the one created by Robert Plutchik’s (find it here on Wikipedia), but I’m sure you can find other ones. Print it (big format) and pin it somewhere in your house. Make a mental note to look at the wheel with your teenager on a frequent basis

2.Keep up with the routine.
There’s no denying that your teenager is unsettled by this “new norm” of being confined at home all the time. We are all experiencing it, but teenagers are more sensitive to this due to their discomfort at processing feelings. This is perfectly normal. Don’t worry if it takes a little for your teenager to adapt to confinement.

But in this time of deep uncertainty, it is even more important to give your teenager a sense of routine, with a daily schedule of recurring activities that happen at the same time each day. Waking up in the morning, doing school work, eating meals with the family, exercising, and going to bed: try to keep those as “normal” as you can. A healthy rhythm of life will help your teenager to gain motivation. Your parenting skills will obviously be tested (sorry about that!) and your teenager might fight back when you try to set boundaries and put a healthy routine in place. Don’t give up, and be positive in your approach. Discuss the matter with your teenager. Try to make a list of ten special “weekend treats” you could start implementing, that would certainly cheer him/her up!

 3.More screen is not the answer
I’m reading more and more alarming studies coming from the US regarding screen time and teenagers. There is a huge rise in social media participation and gaming. Some would say this is perfectly normal because teenagers are at home all the time now. I say we should not fall for this easy solution and fight back. Since when does being at home mean being on our phones all the time?

With the mass-spread of virtual schooling, and virtual youth activities, your teenager is already spending way too much time on a screen. There is absolutely no need to add to these many hours of necessary screen additional hours on the phone or gaming. As tempting and easy as it is, more screen is not the answer. You will end up with a grumpy, hyper, and passive teenager. What to offer instead? The answer is not easy and requires tapping into your teenagers’ creative heart. Together sit down on the couch and list all the activities your teenager would like to do. Painting? Reading? Writing? Learning? You name it. Make suggestions without imposing anything. Try to get your teenager to find something on his/her own. Do not ban gaming and social media completely. It’s good for your teenager to keep in touch with friends and it’s ok to game a bit, as long as it is done in the right setting. Have your “family tech rules” ready. Haven’t written these rules yet? Now is the best time to do it!

4. Help them stay connected
In our current environment, it is really easy to be overwhelmed with everything that is happening in the world and go back to “survival mode”, whatever form it may take. Your teenager will be exactly the same – if not more. For some teenagers “survival mode” literally means going into emotional hiding and waiting for things to get better. So it is really important for you, parents, to help your teenager stay connected with the outside world and avoid solitude.

The best way to do so is to map out the different social groups of your teenager and check which ones he/she is in contact with. Football friends, family members, church youth group, boy-scouts..? Do you know when and how often these groups meet in this new age of isolation? Don’t forget to include in your map the family members your teenager would like to get in touch with. You might find out – to your surprise! – that Uncle Bob emerges from the brainstorming. Organize a phone call with Uncle Bob straight away! One last note: remind your teenager that Snapchat (and other social media) is not the best way to authentically share with their friends. A phone call or a video chat is a much better platform to express their feelings.

5. Invest in their spiritual life
I was on the phone with my great-uncle this week. He was telling me about WW2 and how he still remembers the long queues to buy food. In times of crisis, we are stripped away from our jobs, health, wealth, comfort, food, social relationships and many more things. It awakens deep questions about the meaning of life. Covid-19, like WW2, is a historical moment that your teenager will remember forever. You might not notice it yet, but it will undeniably have a lasting impact on him/her. Your teenager is processing everything and has on his mind many existential questions.

Start to listen to these questions. Don’t dismiss them because you’re too busy. Take them seriously. Help your youth to find answers to these questions. Now is perhaps the best opportunity you’ve ever experienced to share your own faith with your teenager. It might feel awkward at first, but your teenager craves to connect with you on a spiritual level. If you are yourself wondering about God in this turbulent time, that’s great! Why don’t you and your teenager explore what it means to be in relationship with God together? “Ask, and you will receive” said Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. We are going through tough times. Your teenager needs to spend time learning about God and be comforted by Him. You can make it happen!

Notes:

Robert Plutchik’s wheel of emotions

Article from Glossy about social media participation

Article from Polygon about gaming

Hambledon Public Notice 30 March 2020

To see the full application, please email church.office@bhcgodalming.org. Details of the the faculty application would be available in the church in normal circumstances but details can be provided from the church office.

This Sunday’s sermon (coming on the BHC Godalming YouTube channel): Psalm 63 – Hope in the dark times

Hello again, after the most unusual of weeks in which every day life, and church life has been affected so radically.   

After reading down to see what’s going on, here’s A word from Simon Taylor on ‘Shock’.

Having stopped all church gatherings and services last week, on Monday we were instructed to close our buildings completely.  Please note that this applies to Busbridge church, Hambledon church and the Old Rectory.  – All locked up until further notice, with very occasional access by the wardens and those caring for the buildings. 

So, never has it been truer, or more encouraging, to know that the church is not the building, but the people….and for us today, like many churches, it is somewhere virtual – on zoom, YouTube, Spotify and www.bhcgodalming.org!   

[Initially this may involve signing up for a few new (free) accounts and a bit of grappling with new apps and tech, but we’re trying to use the easiest, most widely used and free solutions.  BUT If any of this is not possible for you, please reply – ‘Help…‘ and we’ll do what we can to keep you connected another way.]

Church@Home
Last Sunday’s online service on YouTube has had more than 500 views.  WOW – almost everyone came to church on the same Sunday.  Thanks to all those who have given such positive feedback on the pilot episode – the first Sunday series is now fully commissioned! 

This week Simon Willetts will be preaching on Psalm 63 – Hope in Dark times.    The service will go live on BHC Godalming at 10am on Sunday, and we hope that you will watch at that time, together.  The service includes church members doing the readings and prayers and we are so grateful to everyone who has been able to embrace a new process.  REMEMBER THAT THE CLOCKS ‘SPRING’ FORWARD ON SATURDAY (But the upside of all this is that no one will know if you’re late!).

To go with the service, the Sunday Song List s on Spotify here.  It includes contemporary worship and traditional hymns.  We’ve not quite found to the solution for including songs in the broadcast (there are copyright restrictions) but it’s coming.

Prayer
As important as ever.  The BHC public zoom room is hosted by someone from the Prayer Ministry team at 9am every weekday.  We’ve had up to 20 people several mornings this week.   There are some guidelines on bhcgodalming.org – Please give it a try. The Prayer Ministry team would also be happy to receive any personal prayer requests in confidence.  e: prayer@bhcgodalming.org.  We know that prayer is also continuing relentlessly in Home / Small groups.  Amen!

10.30am Coffee Break & 4pm Tea time
Please feel free to pop in and out of the BHC public zoom room from 10.30-11am and 4-4.30pm to say ‘Hi’, share highs and lows from the day.  We’re all getting used to the new technology so this is quite a good time try it out.

CYF Online
Ichthus and Pathfinders now have a dedicated zoom room for their meetings. Not surprisingly, our young people have taken to their new meetings like ducks to water.  These are happening at roughly the usual Ichthus & Pathfinders times – They are open to everyone, but you do need to register by emailing anto.ficatier@bhcgodalming.org to join the zoom meetings.   

To join in with Explorers and Ark activities, email Judith.hawkey@bhcgodalming.org.

BHC Community Response Team
We have all been humbled and amazed at the many thousands of people who responded to the call to return to work for the NHS.  An even greater number have volunteered to help in their local communities (over half a million according to the latest published figures) and the communities in Busbridge and Hambledon are very much part of those figures.

Road Stewards and House Groups have formed WhatsApp groups, to help them stay in touch; more than sixty people have volunteered to help those who are self-isolating or otherwise unable to leave their homes.  We have received around twenty requests for help and another forty who are receiving ‘phone calls from our pastoral team, to check on their wellbeing.  Several people have registered with us, saying that they are all right for now, but know they will need help as time goes on.

It is heart-warming to be a part of all this and we are so grateful to everyone who has been in touch.  It has been very busy, so if you have volunteered, but have not received an acknowledgement from a member of the team, please could we ask you to e-mail coronaresponse@bhcgodalming.org again, simply to ensure that no-one has been missed?

Above all, we want to say an enormous ‘thank you’!

So, as there’s much for us to do (and contrary to popular opinion – less time with the family ‘remote learning’ at home) please take a look around on www.bhcgodalming.org. 

And don’t forget you can also follow BHC Godalming on Facebook, Instragram and Twitter too.

To the number of you who are in self-isolation at the moment, and indeed those suffering with the virus, please do forward any prayer requests (in confidence) to the Prayer Ministry team via prayer@bhcgodalming.org.  The church would love to care for you spiritually, emotionally and practically if we can.

SHOCK… Wait, Magnolia trees and Sing a new song

People matter: No-one left behind
It is a shock to know that we are in the midst of something profound. It is all about people. It is people who we are collectively trying to protect, love and save; people’s jobs that we are trying to preserve; people’s futures that we are seeking to secure. It is sacrificial NHS and other people who we clapped and cheered at 8pm on Thursday evening from our bedroom windows… and near to us someone was even blowing a bassoon – what a great sound, and oh so Godalming! It is people we collectively lit a candle and prayed for at 7pm last Sunday night alongside over 3 million other people across this Land. It is people we pray for daily at 11am (set your phone) and 5pm if you hear the Busbridge Church bell toll. The message is that, even in the shock and even if you are isolated, you are not alone because people is plural. No-one is left behind.

There is a verse in the Bible which is termed ‘I’ but it was written for public worship; as people together. It was written after a time of huge upheaval and wondering what was happening. It looks back to the attitude that was needed in that upheaval and shock.

I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God (Psalm 40:1-3).

Purposes changed
Some will recall that I had an accident in our garden. I had climbed our overgrown magnolia tree and was merrily minding my own business sawing large branches off it. I had no idea that things were about to change. At some point in the afternoon, whilst I was not paying attention and thought nothing could go wrong, I managed to saw into my leg quite significantly. I was in a terrible predicament and I was not in the best place to get help. I needed to refocus and fast.

I managed to get down from the tree and alert people to help me but then the most incredible thing happened. I was lying on the ground, compressing the wound and focusing on my leg when all of a sudden one of my fingers locked and went into spasm. I remember lying there looking at my finger and thinking “well that isn’t very helpful”. I may have used a few choice words in there too.

Support soon arrived but all I was worried about by then was my finger. Why had it locked? The first person on the scene explained that my body had gone into shock. My ‘normal world’ of business as usual tree cutting seemed a lifetime ago yet it had been less than 2 minutes. Time seemed to flow at a very different speed and my purposes changed.

Delivering well
I was told later that when the body enters shock it ‘locks down’ areas that are secondary to the main place of shock in order to preserve things for the future. This enables the body to concentrate its energy on the place needing it most. It increased the flow of blood to the brain so that the mind is able to think both fast and slow simultaneously. There is forensic focus on what is occurring but time seems to slow down so that decisions being made fast can be delivered well.

I have heard the word ‘shock’ used many times in recent days. Shock at what it happening; or shock that things did not happen earlier; shock that a liberal democracy has put people in their homes; shock that some people seem ignorant of the enormity of the dangers; shock at losing jobs, homes, income; shock that something small, insignificant and invisible can strip away every vestige of normality; shock that we have to queue for the shops. Shock.

The passage from the Bible is about shocking events. It takes us into a realm of fast-slow thinking; to wait on the Lord. To be ready, but to wait. To look forward but to recognise where we are right now and do things well and that require waiting with clear-thinking rather than rushing.

Shock that releases perspective
Shock seems to be entirely destructive, fearsome and negative and when shock takes hold it can transfix and create inertia as we come to a grinding halt. It can also release and prepare the way. It releases us to concentrate on the most important things; things we had forgotten. We are enabled to reconnect to deep things about ourselves and loved ones that have long become overgrown to the point of losing their shape and purpose. It gives us time to consider and provides a fresh perspective about God.

For me, the magnolia tree and whether it was quite the right shape mattered far less than what I thought of my family, my future and whether help would arrive. At that moment my priorities were reshaped and they have remained reshaped.

The passage from the Bible puts everything into perspective. The writer sees that God alone can draw him to a new perspective which is about freedom. It is a freedom from being in a pit and a muddy bog where the feet slip and slide. The freedom comes from having firm footing beneath our feet and it is hope in God which provides this bedrock. The writer’s response is to praise God. God is praised not for anything having changed in their life. God is praised for His provision of salvation. God is the God who cares for His people in this passage. This is why they collectively gather and say “he has put a new song in my mouth”. It is a song of secure hope.

I am not recommending climbing trees and hacking at the branches. I am recommending taking time to consider that the shock we are in will have profound consequences as we look to the future. Our faith in God gives us a unique hope to bring to this for people. We are unlikely to be able to simply go back to how things were before; and if we did, we would not have learnt a collective lesson as people, families and communities that we are not indestructible. The frailty and beauty of human existence that is forged and created by God as a reflection of his creativity is too precious to be squandered by climbing back into our proverbial magnolia trees and hacking away at what we used to do as if today never occurred.

Join with me in waiting on the Lord, seeking God and considering the firm foundations that faith in Him offers at this time of profound change as we ensure that no-one is left behind in life, faith or provisions.