The Stable at the Inn – a new youth venue
A stable attached to an inn! What could be a more appropriate venue for a church to make available for
youngsters looking for a place to hang out? At Middleton Cheney, Oxfordshire, there was a disused building (The Stable) in the graveyard of Baptist Chapel.
As in many villages, the constant cry of the youngsters is: ‘There’s nowhere for us to hang out. It’s OK in the summer, we can gather outside, but it would be great to have somewhere to chill out.’ Last July a group of village teenagers formed an action group to lobby for a place of their own. They were delighted when the New Life Community Church (Baptist) agreed to make The Stable available to them. They have even used some old pews for seating.
Minister John Jeffs led a team which used church money to renovate the building. He says: ‘We are trying to create an environment where the children can come along and spend time among themselves. We’ve already done the second stage – making the church hall into a games room with pool and table tennis. Now we want to put a first floor in the church as a quiet area with computer consoles and a homework club.’
14 year-old Sinead O’Neill comments: ‘Most of the time we just wander around the village looking for our friends because we don’t know where they are. With this we have somewhere we can meet people.’
The Stable will initially be open for three hours each day, twice a week, using volunteer adults to provide light supervision. More volunteers are being actively sought. The centre is available to
teenagers aged 11-17 not just from Middleton Cheney but from smaller villages nearby. Within a month of opening there were 37 youngsters on the books and they had formed a Youth Forum to have a voice in community decisions.
Jenny Carpenter
Contact John Jeffs for more information
john.r.j@btinternet.com
Plough & pub
Blessing the plough at the start of the cultivation season is an ancient custom. It tells of the relationship between humankind, the soil and God. No matter that nowadays cultivation begins in late summer as the fields are cleared, the plough blessing ceremony is often celebrated early in January.
A Farmers’ Market is held by the banks of the Teme at The Talbot, Knightwick, Worcestershire every month on the second Sunday. It is a good place to bless a plough, albeit an ancient one belonging to John and Jill Hammonds who have raised cattle there for years and need good grass for them. So in January this year John and neighbour Simon Twinberrow asked Canon Peter Lawrence to bless the plough while some 50 shoppers and producers stopped to listen.
Hymns were sung, the Bible read and prayers said asking God to bless work in the fields. The victims of the Asian earthquake and tsunami were remembered and everyone reflected upon the nature of our planet and its ability to sustain us. Something which God, through the stable birth, is intimately concerned with.
Not only is it right to invoke the Almighty in our work but this is a good way to take the Gospel to folk whose links with faith may be tenuous.
Peter Lawrence, Malvern
www.arthurrankcentre.org.uk
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rural worship
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