I'm doing something amazing this September as part in the 1882 Challenge to help Church Army ensure the hungry are fed, the homeless are safely sheltered and the isolated and the lonely are welcomed into the community. Please could you donate a little or a lot to help Church Army raised £82,000 through the 1882 Challenge?

Church Army was founded by Wilson Carlile in 1882. He created a movement of ordinary people whose aim was to reach those the Church was failing to reach. And here in 2020, as we tentatively emerge from Lockdown, Church Army is just as vibrant today. More than ever our world needs to know the good news of Jesus and more than ever churches and charities stand in the gap. It’s in this context that Church Army continues to open new Centres of Mission to help meet the need, but this all costs money. Here in the A7 CoM, Simon Cake and Tim Hatton are encouraging and strengthening the mission and worship of the inherited church across the three charges, whilst developing ideas for new additional forms of church that will also serve the needs of the community.

Wilson Carlile is commemorated every year by the wider church on the 26th September. This year Church Army has devised the ‘1882 Challenge’, inviting people to do a sponsored event which involves the number ’18’ or ’82’, get the idea? 

Tim will be organising a sponsored walk on Saturday 26th September and has been carefully planning a good route. Did you know that it is exactly (tongue firmly in cheek) 18.82 miles from St Cuthbert’s Hawick to St Peter’s Galashiels via St Johns Selkirk? (margin of error +/- one mile or so). We will start with a prayers at St Cuthbert’s in the morning, have an outdoor holy communion at St Johns and end with Evening Prayer at St Peter’s. The route will be very pretty including parts of the Borders Abbeys Way and the Southern Upland Way. And of course, the weather will be perfect.

Who would like to join me for all or part of the day? Or could you be thinking of us on the day? And, if you are able, please do sponsor the event. Thanking you in anticipation.

Tim Hatton, Pioneer Evangelist, A7 Centre of Mission