September Stories

Welcome to our Monthly Newsletter

Ministry news this month

Vision Month: We have had an incredible month, focussing on the outworking of our vision and values. Our vision is ‘every life transformed by Jesus’. Our values are we are bold, authentic, generous and faithful. We’re seeking to outwork these in the next season with a focus on prayer, with a 3-pronged approach: Pray, Pray as you Go, Pray as you Grow. We’ve shared how we’re going deeper as a church family as we seek God, for God to transform us, those around us, and our local communities. We launched a prayer movement, 300 prayer meetings (see below for more information)! Praise God for all God's work amongst us!

 Area Dean: We prayed for Tim our vicar as he took on the additional role of Area Dean of Aldershot Deanery at our 6pm service on Sunday 13th September. The role of Area Dean has particular responsibilities to oversee churches in Farnborough, Aldershot, Tongham, Ash, Fleet and Church Crookham. We pray at St. Peter’s for God’s blessing on the whole of Aldershot Deanery, for unity, spiritual depth and that many receive the new life we have in Jesus. 

 New LLM in Training: Milad Chiti: LLM stands for Licensed Lay Minister, a leadership role within our church which is authorised by our Bishop. We have a number of LLMs at St Peter’s, and we’re delighted that Milad Chiti has been accepted and started training to become a LLM. We’re grateful to him, for all our LLMs, who serve our church family in so many ways. 

Ministries Spotlight

300 Prayer Meetings: We are really excited to hear about so many prayer meetings happening across our church community, following the 300 prayer meetings challenge.  There are a wide range of groups meeting.  We have school governors praying, teachers praying, people praying in their workplaces, people praying in their streets.  This isn’t just an adult initiative. We have a young person praying before their football matches.  We look forward to hearing all that God does, as we pray for lives to be transformed. Janet

Parish Centre Hall Media system: We are so grateful for the new projector and sound system in the Parish Centre! It has made a huge difference to the Rising Generations team, giving us technology that reliably supports our teaching and helps us cater for the different learning styles of the many children and young people we welcome throughout the week.

It was a particular blessing during Holiday Club week, when we had so many children in the building and made great use of the new equipment.

A huge thank you to Matt Riley and Yo Kim for all their hard work in making this happen. We’re incredibly grateful! Helen S

Holiday at Home: What a privilege it was to attend ‘Holiday@Home’ in August. We had a wonderful day of catching up with friends, and welcoming new ones to a day of talks and lots of food. We began the day with a poignant ‘Thought for the Day’ from Peter Viveash, and learned a great deal from Lucy’s talk in Church about the wonderful work of the Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice, which has just been beautifully refurbished. After a tasty lunch and chat in the Parish Centre, we learned about the cost of following Jesus in Iran from one of our congregation members Rouhafza, and how Jesus’s light shines through the darkness. We were also encouraged to pray for persecuted Christians. After tea and cake, it was time to say goodbye until next time. Note: Regular midweek activities have now resumed. Sarah

Baptisms: On Sunday 20th September we had an adult Baptism and a infant Baptism (it was a dad and daughter being baptised!) at the 9.15 service, plus at the 6pm service we had an adult reaffirmation of Baptism vows. It was a powerful Sunday as we heard wonderful and moving testimonies of the power of Jesus transforming lives and we witnessed those who were baptised declare their faith and trust in Jesus. 

We have another baptism service on 6th December, so if you haven't been baptised but you would like to be, please speak to Tim or Josh. 

 New Life: Over four Wednesday nights in September we ran New Life. New Life is a new initiative which is a discipleship tool for new followers of Jesus to be equipped, supported and encouraged in their relationship with Jesus and their new life! We have spent time praying together and for one another, hearing testimonies from each other about why we follow Jesus and what our heavenly Father is doing in our lives. Each week we also did Bible studies with themes centred around knowing God the Father and being His children; who Jesus is and the power of the cross for and in our lives; who the Holy Spirit is and how He moves in our lives; finally we looked at key aspects of being a follower of Jesus ie: spending time with God, daily Bible reading and praying etc.  It has been wonderful to see friendships forming within the group and to witness deeper levels of revelation and encounter with God's love and truth.

Men's Night: On Saturday 26th September we had a men's night at Sovereign Snooker club in North Camp. There was lots of banter and conversation, pool, darts, table tennis, shuffleboard (and a few beers!). It was a really fun evening with a range of men from different Sunday services and groups that meet throughout the week, as well as neighbours and friends that had been invited. Look out for information for the next men's event coming up in November. Josh

Satellites: At the end of August, we took 11 of our young people to the Christian youth festival Satellites! We had such a good time spending time together with other church's youth groups from across the diocese, hearing the word from Christians our young people look up to, worshipping with our whole selves and encountering Jesus in so many different ways! Safe to say, we came back from Satellites feeling tired but filled with the spirit and ready for the summer holidays!

 Holiday Club Reunion: We had a Holiday Club Teen Leaders Reunion during September, which was such a great time to catch up with our friends that we made over the fun week of Holiday Club. We held a simple space for them in the Church, where they could come and relax, play games, do some crafts and just chat with each other about what's going on in their lives. There was lots of fun and laughter had, and LOTS of yummy pizza eaten! Grace

Coming up this month

October is Black History Month, and we want to use this as an opportunity to grow as disciples of Jesus. To mark the month, we are inviting you to engage theologically through a selection of reading recommendations (see link below to our Website) that explore a kingdom vision for multiethnic and multicultural life in both our church and our wider community. More will be shared this coming month on how we might grow in this as a community! 

Mission news

This week's Mission News focuses on the Frost family in Argentina and The Triangle in Farnborough.

Martin Frost is preparing discussion material on Jesus building his church on imperfect people, Hazel is teaching English to children who struggle with literacy in Spanish and their elder son is preparing to leave school.

 The Triangle had the following said about it by one of our other mission partners, Grozdan Stoevski, when he was here last January.  “You have no idea what a wonderful resource this shop is for you and how blessed you are to have it so near”.

 Click below for more information