Friends
The Friends of ST PETER & ST PAUL, GODALMING
Will you become a Friend?
For over 1000 years Godalming Parish Church has been a place of Christian worship, providing a place for the prayers of the community both corporate and private, for rejoicing in new birth at the baptism of our children, celebrating marriages, and committing loved ones to the eternal presence of God.
Our forbears made great sacrifices to ensure that this beautiful building has been maintained for a Millennium. However, it has been said that we have not inherited the Parish Church from our parents, we have merely borrowed it from our children.
Will you, therefore, share in the task of “handing it back” to our children in as good, if not better, condition than we received it. It is both a privilege and a responsibility to have the use of St Peter & St Paul Parish Church. As a “Friend” your contribution will be important in ensuring that it remains a place where future generations can discover the presence of God.
To receive an application form, please email us by clicking here and let us know your postal address.
Godalming Parish Church
at St Peter & St Paul
Belongs to our whole community, both those who live and those who work here. The dramatic spire lifts our eyes and our hearts as a symbol of God’s eternal presence in our community. The doors are kept open as much as possible to allow easy access for those who want a quiet moment, perhaps in the Chapel of Prayer, or to soak up the history and sense of continuity from its walls.
The Friends of St Peter & St Paul are a group of people who appreciate the importance of the building to the community and who want to conserve it for future generations. We are a registered Charity and all funds are therefore restricted for use in the upkeep of the building itself. As a Friend you will receive a regular newsletter and a copy of the annual accounts.
“The Friends of St Peter and St Paul” was launched at a memorable service of Choral Evensong on Sunday, 12th September 1999; appropriately, it was the National Heritage Weekend. The Friends have a long-term aim to ensure that the church, which has already stood for over 1000 years, continues to give good service to the community for future generations. Under the Trust Deed which establishes the Friends, the Trustees “hold the capital and income of any money or other property received to be used for the public benefit for the upkeep, repair, maintenance and improvement of the fabric, contents and equipment of the church of St Peter & St Paul, Godalming, and the churchyard.” The day-to-day work of managing the membership roll and fund-raising is undertaken by the Friends’ Committee and the Trustees are very grateful to its members (see above).
We have registered as a Charity. This ensures that every penny given or raised must be used for our stated purpose. It also enables us to reclaim tax paid on donations by means of the government’s Gift Aid scheme; we receive 28 pence for every £1 given.
One aim for the coming year is to increase our membership amongst those who recognise the important role of the church building in our community. The Trustees’ intention is to invest Life Membership subscriptions, with the income from these, together with annual subscriptions and profits of fund-raising events, being available for expenditure.
One project has been to provide a proper display case for the housing of the Anglo-Saxon carved stones. These stones date back more than half way to the time of Christ, to the early 9th Century, and are Godalming’s oldest known artefacts. They are an important part of our heritage and attract a great deal of interest, having been loaned to the Museum of Barcelona for a major exhibition in 1999/2000.
The “Friends” are currently supporting the major restoration and refurbishment of the Octagon. The first phase will cost £370,000 and will be completed in February 2006. Funds are still required for a new boiler to heat the church and to complete Phase 2 of the project which involves extending the creche room and rebuilding the main Octagonal hall. . An Appeal Leaflet gives the background:- “The present Octagon was completed in 1970. It has served the parish well but now needs major renovation, extension and development – the corridor is quite rotten, the roofs leak and the accomodation is now insufficient for the requirements of both present and future generations.”
The Rector has written:
For an entire Millennium, the Parish Church of St Peter & St Paul has served our community of Godalming. Its presence has provided opportunities and challenges for successive generations who have developed the building so that it more appropriately meets the needs of their time. Now is the time to take up another challenge to provide further opportunities to meet the needs of our community. I heartily commend the present project to repair and substantially improve the Octagon as an undertaking worthy of the history of our Parish Church and one which will provide not only for our generation, but also for those to come.
Your contribution will enable the “Friends” to be part of this worthwhile project.
The Trustees (October 2004)
(Bobbin Baxter, Tony Barron, Robert Ingram, Matthew Cave, Michael Goodridge, John Ashe)
Sermon at the launch of the 'Friends of St Peter & St Paul'
12th September 1999
You may be familiar with that genre of novel which spans several generations of one family or perhaps many hundreds of years of events which took place in a certain place.
Such a novel could well be written about Godalming. It would look back to the days of Godhelm and the first settlers,
It would speak of Aethelwold and his uncle, King Alfred;
of Flambard and his building works;
the arrival of the Westbrooks in the 14th Century;
of the so-called naughty vicar, Nicholas Andrews – ejected from the parish in 1643;
We would unravel the 18th Century mystery as to why the grave-digger, John Coston, is remembered as the king of humours and the best of husbands;
we would discover the recipe for Nathaniel Godbold’s vegetable balsam in the 18th Century.
There would be Oglethorpe’s vision and courage;
the arrival of street lighting in 1881;
the body-snatcher of 1910;
the bravery of Jack Philips in the Titanic disaster;
the skill of Thackery Turner and Gertrude Gekyll;
and amongst it all would come the rabbit woman and Peter the Great – and countless others who are written into our history books.
But such a novel would also remind us of other characters – those whose names are forgotten, but whose work in the fields and the tanneries, the bakers, the smiths, the builders, the teachers and doctors have been just as much part of our history.
Such a novel would also speak of one of Godalming’s special places – this very spot – on which a church was built before the beginning of this Millennium.
You will know of our Saxon stones, dating from AD 820, carved stones which were removed as rubble from this very wall against which the pulpit is built, when the arch was raised by the Victorians. The wall itself is 1000 years old, built partly from the rubble of an earlier church.
This, therefore, has been a sacred spot for many years – made sacred not just in itself, but by those who have made pilgrimage here; some Sunday by Sunday, others on special occasions of birth and marriage and death; others still coming in quietly during the week for a few moments of peace.
Perhaps it was someone like Jacob in the Book of Genesis who first stopped at this place and became aware of the presence of God. When Jacob woke from the vision of God he said ‘Surely the Lord is in this place . . . . .. This is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven.’
and, in a very small way, he began a building – a heap of stones – to mark out a special place where people could come and be aware of God with them.
Here, too, we have a pile of stones —— but much more than simply a pile of stones. It is a symbol of God’s presence in our community – and for those countless people who have helped to build it and maintain it – who have come here to find God in exuberant worship or quiet prayer – it has been a gate of heaven.
But, of course, no place becomes holy on its own; it is set apart by people. And a gate has no purpose other than to allow people to get from one side to the other. But without the gate, passage becomes very much harder, and to walk the well-trod way is easier than climbing over walls and fighting through the undergrowth.
Therefore, the steps towards God which previous generations have taken here are of great value to us as we continue to try and make sense of life – to discover love in a world which has a surfeit of suffering and evil.
At its heart, the teaching of the church is not ‘This is the answer!’ but ‘This is where you will find an answer’
The writer of Psalm 73 wrestles with the questions we all have – how to reconcile suffering and evil with a God of love.
The psalmist wrote: ‘When I tried to understand all this, it was too much for me ——- until I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood.’
Reading on in the Psalm, we don’t discover all the answers – the writer wasn’t able to verbalise them, but he ends: ‘as for me, it is good to be near God’.
Just as people have come here for over 1000 years – to discover that it is good to be near God, so we too (and many others), in our worship, our prayers, our silence, sometimes in our tears, sometimes in our laughter, we too have discovered a place to put our questions, to leave our burdens – and to go out in the company of our God.
Today we are launching a new enterprise, the Friends of St Peter & St Paul. Past friends of this place have handed us something of eternal significance, but the days of a local wealthy benefactor who can simply hand over, for example, the half a million pounds which has been spent over the past 30 years – those days are long gone – and the task falls to the community as a whole to ensure that this holy place continues to lead people to a sense of God; to help them to hold on to the reality of hope, when all seems lost; to discover love when our television screens are full of hate.
‘The Friends” is a way we can all help – for it is true of so many things in life that when we work together, we can achieve so much more.
May I, therefore, encourage you to become a Friend?
May I close by turning to words, written by one of the two men to whom this pile of stones is dedicated, St Peter.
In Chapter 2 of his epistle, he points us beyond these stones themselves to the living Stone, Jesus Christ, the corner-stone and he challenges us to become living stones also – so that we, by our lives and actions, might point people to the living God.
My hope and prayer is that by becoming a Friend here, we can do something to help others – in this generation and in the years to come – to help them catch a glimpse of God by having a special place.
When we are privileged to find something of God’s grace ourselves, we are enabled to share that grace with others, not only through the Friends, but in the many ways we can find of serving one another.