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We
were sorry to say goodbye to Mrs Maggie Bridgett as our Interim
Moderator, her help and support was much appreciated.
She will continue to take Services for us as before.
Our Church now comes under the Oversight of Guildford United
Reformed Church. The Rev. Tom Bayliss, the Minister
of the Guildford Church, is now our Minister.
Tom was inducted to the Guildford Church last February.
He had previously been the Minister of the United Church of
Egham (URC/Methodist) and three small Methodist Churches and
he was also the Free Church Chaplain at the Royal Holloway
College, University of London.
Music plays an important part in Tom's life, he has a degree
in Music and was a music teacher for ten years before his
ordination into the United Reformed Church.
We are fortunate in the fact that Tom and his wife Deborah
were able to attend our March coffee morning and Tom was again
with us at our April coffee morning.
Tom will be with us at our Songs of Praise service at the
end of our Flower Festival on Sunday July 9th.
The Guildford Church will take up most of his time, being
a much larger congregation, so we cannot expect him to be
in Elstead very often. Some of you have already met
Tom at our coffee mornings and we hope in time that more of
you will have an opportunity to meet him too. Tom, of
course with Deborah, live in the URC Manse at Guildford.
He gives as a vision for the Church: The Church should be
the body of Christ on earth and all our work and worship,
our witness and service should have Christ at the head.
The Church should be seen to love its community and be a place
of welcome for friend and stranger alike. The Church
should be a community of people who want to grow - in strength
and faith, and numbers, and more like Christ every day.
The Church itself should be a caring community, looking after
those within as well as those outside its fellowship.
The Church should have the respect of the community even if
the community doesn't believe what the Church believes in.
In future, Tom Bayliss will be writing this column for the
Village News.
Jean
Wheatley, Church Secretary
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