From Revd Tom Benson

Dear friends,

I would like to start with a big thank you to everyone who supported the Classic and Custom show in Braishfield on the 4th of October, as part of our developing mission with the biking community. It brought together bikes and bikers of all ages and was supported by three Christian biker organisations - The Knights of Antioch, The Christian Motorcycle Association and the 59 Club. Despite the weather, we reckon that there were over 100 bikes that attended the afternoon and lots of people on foot and travelling by car. We raised over £750 for the Hampshire Air Ambulance. We are planning to hold a Bikers Carol service at King’s Somborne to which everyone is welcome and will release the date soon.

This time of year can also be a sad time for some as we enter a season of cold and dark nights. It can be a time to remember and then to draw strength from those memories, to give thanks for the things that we have done and seen, for the people that we have travelled through life alongside and perhaps see no longer. We remember them in our Remembering services that are held across our church over the last weekend in October. 

We also remember and pay our respects to those who lost their lives in the service of our country in the Remembrance services of the 9th of November. It makes it a poignant, thoughtful time of year, a time to be together and reflect. To help with that, I offer you the prayer below as we move towards the close of 2025.

A prayer for peace

Lord, we pray for active and effective peace-making at an international political level. 

May the measured voices of diplomacy constrain violence on every side. 

Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy... 

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

God Bless, Tom