The Revd Luke Larner joined a few months ago, as the Priest-In-Charge of St Andrew’s Church Luton that has served the local community in the Biscot area for over 150 years.
Sharing his vision for the Church, Fr Luke said, “We’d like the Church to become a peace and wellbeing hub for all in our parish area of Biscot and Saints wards of Luton. We want it to be a blessing to our community. We want to welcome people of all faiths and none, and work together in partnership with the Blenheim Medical Centre and other local organisations, to promote peace and well-being for all.”
On the 1st Feb’24, the Bishop of Bedford Right Reverend Richard Atkinson blessed the Peace Garden at St Andrew’s Church, in which people from different religious and ethnic backgrounds came together to plant a community orchard.
Konni Deppe of the community gardening project called Edible High Town, guided everyone to plan the fruit trees.
Currently training as an orchardist, Konni shared that probably 99% of Luton’s 150 historic orchards in the past 100 years no longer exist. The whole country seems to have lost most of this wonderful habitat. So it is good to create a new orchard, with good trees, at a suitable site with a strong community that will come together to nurture the trees with love, water and mulch, and enjoy the fruit of labour together.
Dr Tahir Mehmood of Blenheim Medical Centre expressed his delight in working in partnership with the Church on this project, which is to enhance the prospects of people’s health and well-being.
A representative from the local Muslim community read Hadith on Trees – “Even if the Resurrection were established upon one of you, while he has in his hand a sapling, let him plant it.” (Source: Musnad Ahmad 12902)
Bishop Richard prayed, “As we focus on the needs of a broken world, we give thanks for this peace garden, for the people who have worked upon it, and for all that it symbolizes and represents. We pray that it may indeed be a place of peace and renewed relationships. We also pray for the Anvil to turn the Amnesty knives into gardening tools, transforming violence towards peace and community. AMEN.”
the Bishop of Bedford Right Reverend Richard Atkinson (3rd from left) blessed the Peace Garden at St Andrew’s Church, in which people from different religious and ethnic backgrounds came together to plant a community orchard.