The Vicar, Readers and Pastoral Assistants are there for anyone in pastoral need, whether or not they come to church. They visit the sick at home or in hospital, and are always glad to hear of people who need such visits. It is a privilege to share with people some of the most important moments in their lives – births, marriages and deaths. We also provide other pastoral opportunities – for example, Parenting Groups, and the opportunity for the Laying on of Hands for Healing. Those who are housebound can receive Holy Communion in their homes. There are several house-groups which meet regularly.
SOCIAL EVENTS
Regular social events organised by the church and other village groups take place in the Church Hall. A Pop-In providing coffee and company for everyone in the community is held there each Tuesday from 10.00 - 12.00 while on the first Friday of each month (and every Friday during Lent) there is a Charity Soup and Cheese Lunch at 12.30 pm, which raises money for Woking Hospice. The St Lawrence Chobham Old Folks Club meets fortnightly on Tuesday afternoons at the Parish Pavilion.
SCHOOL LINKS We have two Church Schools in the parish:
Chobham St Lawrence Church of England (Aided) Primary, Headteacher: Mrs Catherine Reynolds (01276 858336)
http://www.chobham-st-lawrence.surrey.sch.uk/
Valley End Church of England (Controlled) Infants, Headteacher: Mrs Margaret Heritage (01276 858299)
http://www.valleyend.surrey.sch.uk/
We also maintain close pastoral links with Wishmore Cross EBD School and the two independent schools in the parish.
A FAMILY CHURCH... in the broadest sense
The church should be there for families, says our Vicar Andrew Body and that means families of all shapes and sizes...
We are followers of Jesus, who, according to the New Testament record, came from a far from typical family situation. What he demonstrated in his dealings with people was that he accepted people in the very mixed reality of their lives, and didn’t make judgements about them. But the evidence is that many people think the Christian community is very judgemental unless families conform to some stereotype which they think we expect. We have a lot to do if we are to change those preconceptions.
I was providing some training for Pastoral Assistants in the diocese about ‘family’. Asked to say what they meant by ‘family’ almost every there came up with something different. And when I sent them off to research whether they had examples of the following kinds of family in their churches, some of them came back quite disturbed that they had been thinking about family in such narrow terms before.
The list was this: · Single people who have never married · Single people who have been divorced, and possibly share the care of their children · Couples without children · Widows and widowers of all ages · Lone-parent families · Two-parent families · Families with one or more disabled children · Extended families · Adoptive families · Friends living together · Same sex partnerships, with or without children · Foster families · Blended families · Families from different cultural backgrounds · Mixed-faith or inter-church families · Carers and their elderly or disabled relatives
The task of the Christian community is to support people living in all these family structures – and probably others besides. Each of us will have a limited personal experience of what family can mean, because we only know at first hand the families we have been part of. We may think what we know is ‘normal’ – as indeed it is to us. But it may be very far from normality for countless others. We need to bear that in mind when we hear politicians and others talking about ‘family values’.