St Martin's Chipping Ongar

Greensted Church

Welcome to Greensted Church - the oldest wooden stave church in the world.

St Peter's Shelley

St Peter's church is normally open daily during daylight hours to visitors, tourists and pilgrims as a quiet space for private prayer and reflection. We also provide "help-yourself" tea and coffee and water and doggie treats for our canine visitors.

St Peter's operates as a Chapel of Ease with the Bishop's permission and is a sister church to St Martin's Chipping Ongar.

We hold monthly Julian Meetings in the church on the 2nd Thursday at 2pm. These are meditation meetings, focusing on being silent in the presence of God and are open to all.

We provide a series of festival services, on the correct day, normally in the afternoon, followed by excellent refreshments. These include Candlemas, an Annunciation Day communion, an Ascension Day communion, our Patronal Festival on June 29th, Harvest Festival, Remembrance Day and Nine Lessons and Carols on the fourth Sunday of Advent.

We hold bring and share lunches before some services.

We have an annual Summer Fair at the beginning of August, which celebrates our place in the Shelley community. It is a time of excellent fellowship as well as a means of fund-raising.

We are involved in the Eco-Church initiative - we already hold Bronze Eco-Church status and are working towards our Silver. We are also a Tearfund Church.

We hold regular working parties to maintain our churchyard - we have bird boxes and insect homes and bird feeders made from recycled bottles.

Our current projects include fund-raising for a permanent, accessible compostable toilet and replacing our current Calor GS heaters with a far more energy-efficient form of heating.

We are a growing, thriving community.

Stanford Rivers: St Margaret

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