Clearing the weeds

On Sunday, we had our first working party of volunteers at Caroline House gather to start the renovations of the building. The first project was to tackle the weeds and to begin clearing a pathway from the road to the front doors. Having been unused for many years, the area was overrun with weeds and had a lot of rubbish and glass littering the car park.

A team of our Farnborough community bought their strimmers, dustpans, wheelbarrows and brooms (along with muscle and brute force!) raring to go. It was very dusty work and we persevered in the sun and rain and successfully cleared the majority of the carpark. It was so wonderful to see people in person and to work together as a team.

In the bible, when ancient Israelites read the creation story, they would have understood it as God forming the world to be His very own cosmic temple. You could say creation was God’s very own church building project. In Genesis 1:2, the Hebrew word used to describe the earth is “to.hu”, which means a place of chaos, a wasteland or a wilderness. On the first day of creation, God begins to tame and organise that chaos separating out the light from the dark. He doesn’t start filling it. He doesn’t bring in the animals, plants or lights in the sky yet. He starts by organising.

As we begin to form our own church home, we are very much on the first day of our creation project. This first stage will involve beginning to tame the chaos and wilderness of the derelict site to bring some form and order: tackling the weeds, fixing the utilities, preparing the bare bones of the building.

This is the first day among many, but there is much work to be done. A huge thank you to everyone who came on Sunday and rolled up their sleeves in the dust and the weeds! Keep an eye out for updates and future opportunities to take your turn at helping us create a beautiful church home together.