Back to the garden?
What might it look like if we saw more of heaven on Earth?
Restoration and renewal in every home? People worshipping on every street?! Church would and could be everywhere!
The Garden is a growing network of missional communities that have no specific building or centre. They are a network of communities or houses united by five core Biblical values and six simple practices, a rhythm of daily Bible reading, Bible project YouTube clips and prayer to enable everyone the opportunity to sample and live out a transformational rhythm and rule of life in Jesus Christ. Disciples that are built around the kitchen table for the off-road track, travelling light and hoping for much.
Garden Church is not a ‘new model’ of church. It is simply a reconnection with the movement and mode of the Church in Acts 2:42. It is a framework to provide structure and freedom to release simple church in the home and provide an accountability network and support for local mission. We work alongside and in partnership with all denominations, local churches of any tradition or flavour and we come in peace!
The missional communities help us to experience the best of ‘big’ and best of ‘small’ and being zero cost they are sustainable and replicable and can work in partnership with their local church. They provide a safe and friendly environment in which to test drive the call in Ephesians 4 to develop the gifts and skills of God’s people because they are small enough to allow everyone to play. They provide an environment in which to grow and ‘re-disciple’ disciples for this new era. The Garden also enjoys the encouragement that comes from being gathered on a monthly basis with faces from Stalham to Walberswick, a house boat on the river Waveney to an inner city estate in West Earlham, an ecocentred small holding in Loddon or new housing in Sprowston, The Upper Nar Villages and more recently the Tamil Nadu region of India! We have much to learn from each other. Young and old. A chance to be refreshed and for kids and youth to hang out. Garden Church in partnership with The Mitre Benefice and The Diocese of Norwich Church Planting and Revitalisation Programme is exploring this mode of ministry with new plants in Sprowston and The Upper Nar Villages.
Let us know if you would like to learn more:
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£15,000 raised in a day
Founded in 1993, this village organisation has truly gone from strength to strength.
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Friends in a time of need
‘Do we carry out urgent repairs to the building or do we pay our parish share in full?’
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Powerful friends
When the local community learnt that St Peter’s Church, Forncett, was threatened with closure, the response was immediate; their beautiful 1000-year-old Anglo Saxon church with its iconic round tower must be saved for future generations!
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An amazing array of support
The rector and churchwardens are the Trustees of Reepham Church Charities which includes a plot of land, currently leased to Reepham Town Council for allotments, but also funds accumulated from rents which are to be used specifically for ‘the relief of the poor of Reepham’.
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Supporting education in Brooke
Like my predecessors I am a trustee of several small village-based charities.
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Heating cost support
The Sporle Relief in Need Charity (charity number 213063) owns Sporle’s Town Farm: a farm which nowadays is sadly separated from the village by the A47, with no bridge or easy means of crossing.
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Curiosity into wonder
The Saxons founded Fishley in the 10th century, followed by the Normans who built the current church of St. Mary’s.
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Honour where honour is due
The 2011 Census identified 177,918 young carers in England and Wales.
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Please hold the line caller
Just opposite the church in Blickling, on the side of the road, is a lovely old red phone box which, a couple of years ago, was looking a bit unloved and forlorn.
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Angels to the rescue
It is a great shame that so many events and club meetings in Knapton have had to be cancelled for such a long period because of COVID, but the Knapton Angels have done a fantastic job of supporting our parishioners through these dark times, meeting over 400 requests for support and help.
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