Lent 2020

Lent 2020

Lent Lunches – Great Somerford

A simple lunch of bread, soup and fruit is offered in return for a monetary donation which goes towards the funds for Great Somerford Church, starting at 12.30pm

Wednesday 26th February at The Mount ( next to church)

Wednesday 4th March at Parsloe, Hollow Street

Wednesday 11th March  at Park Farm, Idover Lane, Dauntsey

CANCELLED (Wednesday 18th March) CANCELLED

Lent Eco Challenge

The Diocese of Bristol declared a Climate Emergency in November 2019 in which they called upon individual members, churches, church schools and occupiers and users of church properties to do whatever they can to reduce the impact of their activities on the environment, with a view to becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

The six church groups of the North Wiltshire Mission Area are united in exploring our responsibility for the care of God’s Creation throughout Lent 2020 and beyond, through a variety of challenges, courses and books.

A variety of materials are available to support us throughout Lent, which will appeal to different groups of people.

  1. ‘Saying Yes to Life’. Bishop Viv recommends the book ‘Saying Yes to Life’ by Ruth Valerio. This is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book for this year, which gives a good mix of theological background and practical steps. This is currently available on Amazon.co.uk, or via Kindle.  It is an excellent background read and contains far more material than we can reasonably cover in teaching or in small group sessions!
  2. Live Lent. Linked to this book, a 40 day booklet of short reflections and suggested actions ‘LiveLent : Care for God’s Creation’ has been produced. A limited number of these will be in our churches for free.
  3. Lent Meetings. Rev Mark Siddall, a former climate change scientist, now curate in the Draycot Group has produced a simple six session Lent Course for the Diocese. We will be using this as the basis of six weekly Lent meetings which will be held in Great Somerford Church on Tuesday evenings between March 3rd and April 7th from 7.15pm to 8.45pm.  These will be an opportunity for us as a benefice to start engaging with Creation Care with discussion of what practical actions each church and the Woodbridge Group might be able to put into place, short term and long term, alongside an understanding of the theological context.
  4. Eco-Challenge. The Draycot Group has also come up with a six week Eco-Challenge, a series of personal challenges which they are promoting within their churches and schools to improve our eco habits. Materials for these will be available here and within our churches, and are very suitable for use with children.
  5. Eco-Church. Each Church is being encouraged to register in the ‘Eco Church’ scheme in order to evaluate the impact of their activities on the environment and identify opportunities for improvement. A couple of churches in Woodbridge have already started this process by registering and starting the evaluation, which is comprehensive but not time consuming. More details at ARocha’s website: https://ecochurch.arocha.org.uk/