Friday 19th April

10am Good Friday
Joint service at Vine Baptist Church

Sunday 21st April

6am Sunrise service
Meet at Ide Hill Cafe 

10am Easter Celebration
and Baptismal Service

How is Faithworks changing? We have a new logo and we have been changing how we see ourselves over the last few months.

Since 2005 Faithworks has become a part of the village community and during that time we have been involved in many ways including running a youth club and coffee shop, organising community Fun Days, helping in the School and other village activities. As I wrote in the last edition of this magazine, life in the village has changed a lot since 2005 and there are now more facilities and organisations for residents to enjoy.

What has disappeared in the last 13 years are the churches in the village with both the Free Church in Station Road and Bethel Chapel congregations gone and their sites either being developed or plans to do so. Faithworks started with a group of people from Bessels Green Baptist who decided not to establish another church but rather become part of the community and meet what needs they could. We have done this and continue to do so. Faithworks is now full of village people.

So, what is Faithworks now? Well we think we are the Christian church in the village but we are not a traditional church with formal services in a church building. We are still very much part of the community. We are the community church – people not a place!

Faithworks meets regularly at the pavilion on Sunday mornings with a Café and Family Fun where we enjoy each other’s company and chat informally about the Christian faith. We are often in Bojangles and continue to help wherever we can in the village – regularly in the School, at Hamlyn Court sheltered housing and with Parish Council events. If people want to talk in more depth about the Christian faith we meet twice a month on Wednesday evenings.

We are still part of Bessels Green Baptist Church who support us and meet with us a few times a year.

The key message is that we are YOUR church in Dunton Green. Watch out for a leaflet through your door with more information, or:

contact: faithworks@bgbc.co.uk

visit our Facebook page: fb.me/dgfaithworks

or see our website: www.dgmessage.com

The people of the Sevenoaks area have a long history of providing support to refugees fleeing war and oppression.
In 1685, after Louis XIV of France declared Protestantism to be illegal, tens of thousands of French Protestants – the Huguenots – came to England to start again. Some of these were given space in Sundridge and Chevening. Interestingly, the word “refugee” entered the English language with the arrival of the Huguenots.

In the 18th century we know that several African Americans fleeing slavery in the US spoke (and sang) of their trials and troubles on platforms and in pulpits in Sevenoaks. In the 1850’s Robert Owen, philanthropic social reformer and one of the founders of the cooperative movement, who lived his later years at Park Grange (now part of Sevenoaks School – the house at the very southern end of the upper High Street) gave a home to various European refugee politicians, including the Russian intellectual Alexander Herzen.

During the First World War thousands of refugees from Belgium were dispersed across the country, including here in the Sevenoaks area. The Sevenoaks Chronicle described how local people were engaged in raising money and collecting clothes for the refugees already in their midst. On 23 October 1915, the Sevenoaks Chronicle reported a whist drive being held in the Weald for the destitute Belgians Fund, while Mr Frank Robinson let it be known that the cinema was admitting Belgian refugees into the mid-week and Saturday matinee for free. In July 1916 the Sevenoaks Belgian Refugees’ Fund stated that since its foundation the Fund had “entirely supported or partially assisted over 80 persons”.

Greek children, refugees from Anatolia in 1923, were supported by a group in Sevenoaks. In 1936 clothing was collected in Sevenoaks for Spanish refugees.

In October 1939 there were some 6,000 refugees from Europe in Kent. The Sevenoaks Chronicle reports how in 1938-40 the Sevenoaks District Refugees’ Committee was planning the reception of children who were ‘victims of Nazi persecution’.

Sevenoaks families gave a kind reception to East African Asians expelled from Uganda in 1972.

And now the Syrian civil war has created the biggest refugee and displacement crisis of our time.

If you’d like to help support refugees from Syria now living in our community, or know more about what the local refugee support group is doing, please contact Humphrey Pring, chair of Sevenoaks Welcomes Refugees at sevenoakswelcomesrefugees@gmail.com

With thanks to David Killingray and Matt Ball

Want to know what is happening with the young people at BGBC and the local area? Please read Josh’s Winter 2018 newsletter here.

Hungry Harry (the big dustbin just inside the chapel doors at the front) has an empty tummy!

Harry is the collection point for all donations to the Sevenoaks Food Bank, which helps provide non-perishable food and groceries for families in need in the Sevenoaks area.  They are currently in need of donations of:

• breakfast cereals
• long life fruit juices
• pasta/curry/stir-fry sauces
• tinned meat
• tinned vegetables
• tinned fruit
• biscuits and cereal bars
• sugar
• honey/jam/marmalade
• toothpaste/toothbrushes
• tissues
• kitchen roll
• laundry cleaning products

Please donate what you can, and do check use by dates!

Please join us on Tuesday 24th April 2018, at 20:00, for our annual Church AGM.

Everyone who attends BGBC is an integral and important part of the Church Family and we’d love it if you could join us. If you would like to take a more active role in the life of the church and be involved in the decision making and are not yet a member please speak to Charlie or one of the Elders about becoming one (which would enable you to vote at Church Meetings).

The agenda can be found here.

If you would like further documents please contact the church office and we’ll be happy to send them out.