Lighthouse Community Church in Sheringham is engaging in a number of activities which serve the local area in its mission to be established as a “Hub Church” for North Norfolk. Tony Rothe reports.
These activities include free meals, food hampers, children’s shop, men’s shed, community garden, bulb planting, as well as making its modern building available for several other groups, such as choirs, Pilates, theatre rehearsals, local clubs and societies, etc to use during the week.
Ian Savory, senior leader at Lighthouse, said: “Not far from our church base are the beautiful ruins of Beeston Priory. In its heyday it was a place of worship, teaching, training, prayer and serving. It would have created business, inspired the arts, and celebrated God’s creation with a prophetic edge soaked in intercession. Nowadays it would be called a Hub Church – and inspires us as to what Church can be.”
Lighthouse Café, pictured above, is the base for some of the initiatives, such as Family Fridays, where local families can come and enjoy a free meal on a Friday teatime every fortnight along with a time of fun and games for the children. There is also a weekly community lunch, known as “Meet and Eat” on Thursdays offering a two-course meal for only £5, which is open to anyone who wants to just meet up with other people to enjoy lunch together.
Café Manager Maggie Rothe said:, “With rising prices starting to take hold, it is more important than ever that we do what we can to help the local community, and these meals are proving increasingly popular – they are available to anyone who wishes to join us.”
With this in mind, the church has been giving out food parcels, right, during some school holidays. The initiative started when the free school meals were discontinued in school holidays during the pandemic, and has continued since then, with dozens of food parcels being given out during the recent October half-term holiday.
Maggie said:, “We have only been able to do this because of the generosity of our church folk and local businesses, but we are convinced it is meeting a real need.”.
Lighthouse is also taking part in the national Men’s Shed scheme with Sheringham Shed, right, in the town centre and Priory Patch, a community fruit and vegetable garden in nearby Beeston Regis. Separate workshops for men and women are available at the Shed, mainly on Tuesdays, and there has been a recent Christians Against Poverty Life Skills course.
Work at Priory Patch generally takes place on Wednesday mornings, where anyone can come along to help develop the community garden.
Daniel Ward, Lighthouse Community Pastor, said: “We have just held a family “Plant a Tree” day where church folk planted over 100 fruit trees which will, eventually, provide the ingredients for jams and chutneys and maybe even home-made wine!”
Lighthouse has now opened a community shop selling pre-loved children’s clothes, toys, and equipment. “ThreadBear” is open during the week from Tuesday to Friday, generally when Lighthouse Café is open ie 10.30am to 2.30pm daily.
Sue Savory, one of the leaders at Lighthouse, said: “Many families are really struggling at the moment, and if we can help out by providing good pre-loved children’s clothes, toys, games, etc at knock-down prices, then that should prove a real blessing in those situations.”. There is also a recycling bin at the front of the Cromer Road building for any unwanted clothing, shoes, fabrics, handbags etc, which is available for anyone to use.
The church carries out occasional community activities on Sundays, instead of the usual morning service. In early October, people from the church planted hundreds of daffodil bulbs alongside Beeston Common and on Cromer Road. Ian Savory, leader at Lighthouse, said: “As a church we want to take part in activities which will provide some benefit for our local community. Hopefully when these bulbs flower in the Spring, they will provide a little colour and joy in everyone’s lives.”
Lighthouse has also partnered with the Christian charity Hope Into Action to house a homeless family in Sheringham, and plays a major role alongside other Sheringham churches in BeachLife, which provides free activities to children and young people for a week in the summer holidays and at other times.
Ian Savory concluded:, “We want to be Kingdom Come in our immediate community of Sheringham, Cromer, and Holt, and in the surrounding villages and beyond. We are not the only thing God is doing in this area, but we do have our hearts set to the beyond, that we might be influencers of nations, inspired by the Holy Spirit and doing Church with the servant-hearty of Jesus.”
To find out more, visit LighthouseSheringham.org and the Lighthouse Facebook page or e-mail [email protected].
For more about Sheringham Shed and Priory Patch, find them on Facebook or e-mail : [email protected].
The pictures above are courtesy of Gareth Gabriel and Sue Savory.
This article has also appeared in “Good News for Norwich and Norfolk”, published by Network Norfolk.
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Tony Rothe, 29/11/2022
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