Marcelina Wisniewka, a year 3 pupil from Tenacres Primary School in the parish of Ipsley, Redditch is celebrating after winning the Open the Book Platinum Jubilee competition. Pupils were given…
Pupils were given four different bible verses and were asked to represent one of them through a story, poem or picture reflecting the theme of service.
Marcelina created a poster around ‘it’s more blessed to give than receive’ and won copies of the book: ‘Queen Elizabeth II: The Queen who chose to serve’ as well as new versions of the Good News Bible for herself and her classmates.
Tenacres is one of the local schools visited by the Open the Book team from St Peter’s Church in Ipsley, Christ Church in Matchborough and St John’s Church in Greenlands. To celebrate the Jubilee, St Peter’s has also been working with Ipsley CE Middle School on a Platinum Jubilee Song.
Jenny Nathaniel explains: “We asked our congregation to contribute a line or a sentence to be put together into a new hymn using the tune of ‘Love Divine, All Loves Excelling’, which we know is one of The Queen’s favourite hymns. These were then compiled by a retired music teacher into St Peter’s Platinum Jubilee Song, which 48 students in the choir at Ipsley are recording and putting onto a CD for us to use!”
A group from St Peter’s will also be singing the new song at their afternoon tea event for the Jubilee on Saturday 4 June and children from the school and their families have also been invited to the church’s Pentecost service to sing it together! The church is open next Thursday, Friday and Saturday with activities and displayed about the Queen and her faith and they will be blessing a newly planted tree as part of the Queen’s Green Canopy on Saturday. All are welcome to join them.
At the recent Clergy Conference, the diocesan stewardship team launched a Boomerang offering, to help activate generosity across the Diocese. Each person was given a £5 note to take home, pray with and see what act of generosity God was calling them towards. We also asked them to share their stories of how the money was used.
Many of our churches hosted ‘light parties’ at the end of October as a popular alternative to Halloween. Some of our renewal churches hosted the biggest celebrations.
Our diocese has been awarded £3.6 million to continue to support churches as part of phase two of our programme to ensure our churches are healthy and sustainable for the future.
Kelly Gordon is a member of Wordsley Parish in Greater Dudley Deanery. She has recently been selected as one of only three people in the UK to be part of the Leaders Europe programme within the Obama Foundation.
St Peter’s CE Academy and St Peter’s Church in the Saltway Team have been awarded a silver Church and School Partnership Award recognising the close relationship between the church, school and local community.
This year’s Church of England Advent and Christmas theme focuses on the first and greatest Christmas gift of all: the gift of God being born as one of us in Jesus Christ.
An article from Archdeacon Mark for December editions of parish magazines.
The Muslim-Christian dialogue group in Lye, Stourbridge, arranged a litter pick on 31 October to clear up two local streets.
A new singing group for children will launch at St Peter’s Centre at Pedmore Church on 15 November, 10 years after Singing Angels originally began at St Andrew’s Church on the Straits.
Bishop Hugh visited Cropthorne with Charlton C of E First School on 3 November to share in their collective worship and meet with the children.
