Shellie Ward is Vicar of Broadway with Wickhamford and Childswickham but has begun working more widely across Evesham and the surrounding areas to create new mission opportunities and support parishes in vacancy.
Shellie said: “I love outreach, mission and meeting people where they are, particularly if it involves being creative and food! I was therefore pleased to be asked to support other parishes and I am particularly working with Hampton, Hinton on the Green and Sedgeberrow.”
Shellie is working alongside LLM Elaine Major to establish a ‘Pop In’ coffee morning at the Farm Shop in Hampton, which is between two new housing estates. Each week on Tuesday from 2 – 3pm, the shop now offers reduced price hot drinks and Shellie and Elaine are there to chat to anyone who comes along.
“It is great to be working alongside Elaine who is also passionate about mission. We are putting up posters and promoting the ‘Pop In’ session around the two estates and hope to develop an expression of church at the coffee shop. We’re already planning an outdoor carol service at Christmas!”
Shellie is also going along to support coffee mornings which take place every 4th Thursday in Sedgeberrow church and has an informal arrangement with the other parishes, offering support during the week and helping to cover services when she can.
“We are looking at the whole of Evesham as one mission area with fluid boundaries between the different parishes. This means the clergy and lay leaders work together across the patch, playing to each person’s strength and helping to overcome any feelings of isolation,” Shellie said. “I am also getting involved in the wider diocesan plan for mission to areas of new housing – I’m currently researching how we might offer catering in a mobile vehicle which we can use to support parishes with large new housing estates.”
Shellie continues to work across Broadway, Wickhamford and Childswickham with services on a Sunday and plans for a poppy cascade for Remembrance.
She continues: “Broadway is such a big tourist village that it’s important that we have a regular 10.30am service on a Sunday and I really enjoy village life and bringing people together to socialise and worship God. The response to our appeal for knitted and crocheted poppies has been completely overwhelming. We’ve been told we need at least 4,000 poppies and we’re already halfway towards that. I worked with the ‘Sew U Knit’ craft shop in the village and the Broadway Crafters, but we’ve got people sending us poppies from all over and it’s reaching parts of the community that we wouldn’t normally reach!”
“The Holy Spirit has definitely been moving as I’ve been invited to be involved in different things. It is great to be working with different communities and then see how it all fits together. Hopefully through all this work we will develop groups of faithful, inspired and flourishing groups of Christians throughout our area.”
