Welcome to the website of the parish of Capel and Ockley. We are part of the Surrey Weald Team of parishes close to the south Surrey border with West Sussex. The other parishes in the team are St Peter’s, Newdigate, and St Mary Magdelene, South Holmwood. Our church offers a variety of worship, both separate and as part of the Weald Team.
We are a two small friendly village churches joined in one parish. The churches remain rural, but are located in the busy commuter belt south of London.
We serve first and foremost God, our father in heaven, but serving God also means offering help and comfort to all around us. Love your neighbour as yourself. We therefore feel we must be at the heart of our community. We extend a welcome to all in the village and those visiting, all people of faith and all who have not had faith for some time.
Monthly Newsletter from Rev. Liz Richardson:
Online June
Breaking news – the church hasn’t closed down – it’s gone online! Well actually we went online about eight weeks ago! How are you getting on with your online communication I wonder? Fantastic when it works isn’t it and enraging when it doesn’t; that’s what we are finding at home anyway! I hope you have managed to catch one of our online services which are posted on our parish website www.capelandockleychurch.org.uk/services/services-on-line The real breaking news is though that I am able to now enter our churches by myself with one member of my household if I wish. So the last couple of weeks I have recorded or rather Doug has recorded my contribution to the service inside both St John’s and St Margaret’s. We are hoping that towards the end of this month of June, the buildings will be accessible to you all for spending time in should you wish to. Services in churches will not be happening for a few more weeks I think. Then we will be following guidelines as to how to keep a social distance from one another and so on. It is still very hard to get your head round all of this though isn’t… Read More
Latest news from the Church of England
COVID-19 Briefing 26/05
Reading Luke’s retelling of the Parable of the Sower in Morning Prayer this morning, I was reminded of the original meaning of the word ‘broadcast’: that ‘broadcasting’ began as an agricultural term, referring to the practice of scattering seeds rather than placing them neatly in drills or rows. As the Parable itself demonstrates it was hardly the most careful way to go about it: a great deal of seed would inevitably fall by the wayside, only to be parched, choked or gobbled up by passing pigeons. But the more broadly the seed was cast, the greater the chance of a good proportion of it taking root and bearing fruit. Along with the centrality of good pastoral ministry during this Covid crisis, our churches are increasingly waking up to the opportunity to cast more broadly, rather than merely drilling the congregation or neatly sowing the seed of God’s Word along the rows of chairs or pews. In particular, the many broadcasting platforms (to use the word in its modern sense) have given us extraordinary opportunities to reach out to a much broader audience than before, around 24% of the British population according to a recent poll. It would be easy to be cynical… Read MoreRead More »