Journey Into Christmas

On the weekend before Christmas, the Redditch Town Centre Chaplaincy Team installed an:
Interactive, Family-Friendly Christmas Experience
in the side chapel at St Stephens.

This colourful installation was manned and open from 10am until 3pm on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before Christmas.
Each of the 5 stations encouraged you to reflect of different aspects of the Christmas Story and to spend as much or as little time as you needed at each one.
121 people visited and experienced Christmas in a different way.

You can read more about it in The Redditch Standard article

Put Yourself in the Picture

Our prayer station for the Advent period is called "Put Yourself in the Picture".

This station is based on the Church of England Blessing:

May the joy of the angels,

the eagerness of the shepherds,

the perseverance of the wise men,

the obedience of Joseph and Mary

and the peace of the Christ child

be yours this Christmas.

White lining fabric has been pinned to the top of the large wooden cross, to fall down and over the centre table. A 3D card star has been stuffed with about 8 of the white fairy lights and put on a pole duck-taped to the back of the cross. The lights, as for the "Praying in Colour" station, are on a timer to come on just before 8am and off at 4.30pm when the shop shuts.

I like the concept that the cross, whilst being covered and not remembered within the nativity narrative, is here supporting the whole scene.

The three frames, which I already had with unwanted pictures in them, hold 3 scenes:

• a starry sky for angels;
• a green hill for shepherds and
• a sandy hill for wise men.

Cutouts of the characters: wise men, angels and shepherds; have been put in front of each scene with sticky-fixers available. Some of the characters are uncoloured to allow people/children to colour themselves if they want to. Blank rectangles for peoples names are also there. Some sticky gold stars are there too, just because...

An empty crib with "straw" in it has also been placed in the centre with Christmas cards added to illustrate the expected scene.

Directions

Copies of the Christmas Blessing are available for people to take away and remember at home.

Christmas colouring sheets have been added to the children's corner to go with our seasonal theme. I'd also like to create some Christmas cards to colour - time allowing.

This prayer station will be available until 19th Dec when it will be dismantled to make room for a "Journey Into Christmas" - a manned interactive area by the Kingfisher chaplaincy team that will be open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday in the Christmas week.

Goodbye to Praying in Colour

The "Praying in Colour" prayer station has been up from 25th Oct to today, 28th November - 5 weeks in all.

Lots of prayer ribbons have been tied on to the string coming from the cross. It's not obvious whether people were using the different colours for different meanings.

The Paris attacks happened during this period and, following a gathering of people of different faiths and none, a French flag was positioned at the side of the prayer space. The red and blue ribbons ran out and I would have liked to have added white ribbons to symbolise peace but didn't manage to find time to do that.

Overall, there has been a good engagement with this prayer station, starting with Messy Church and providing a focus for those praying for Paris and the wider world.

Praying in Colour

Today we held Messy Church in St Stephens.

We have an ecumenical team from several churches in & around Redditch which is a true blessing and a great exercise in growing unity.

Today's Messy Church focussed on Noah and his Ark which gave us lots of scope for animals and colours.  I wanted to create a prayer station that would be appropriate both for the children to use and also to remain open for the coming month.

I got the idea for this station from this lovely picture.

Trying to work out from where to run the string, running it from the old wooden cross we already had seemed very fitting.  The other ends are attached to curtain poles that are gaffer-taped to the dais.




The ribbons are 10mm wide and about 30cm long.  I got them all from one eBay site: 22m of each so there's plenty left over for other projects.
















The instructions were adapted from ones that I found here













The Bible passages with God's promises were copied from this blog and are mounted on A6 sized funky foam. (Who doesn't love a bit of funky foam?!?!)





I'm more pleased than I should be about putting up the fairy lights however I think they are important. They do draw the eye and invite people into the space.  We've put them on a timer, to be on during the time that people are in the church.

There is a title but the picture I took with it in came out fuzzy.  Rainbow-bordered notices have been put up in 7 different locations, inviting people to "Come & Pray", including one facing into the shop.

It was great to see the children engage with the prayer station.

Explaining it, I suggested that they thought of someone that they'd like God to help or care for; choose a ribbon for them & then tie it onto the string like saying a prayer. I also suggested they could "pray" for as many people as they liked.

The written instructions seemed a bit over-complicated. It's possible that some people will find them helpful, we shall see.

This station will remain in place until it's time to put in an Advent-themed one.

Goodbye to the Autumn prayer station

In this last week, we were pleased to welcome a party of school children to visit St Stephen's Church to ask the question:

"What is it like to be a Christian today?"

After having a chat with the vicar and Gail, they wandered around the church and some of them added their leaves to the cobwebs.

Although it was sad to dismantle our first prayer station, I prayed over each leaf prayer as I took it down.

It's time to create a new station, one that goes with the theme of today's Messy Church - Noah and the Ark!

Baptism Activities in the Children's Corner

We have baptisms in St Stephens 2-3 times a month, usually on the 2nd, 4th and 5th (if there is one) Sundays after the main morning service.

There are often 2 families and their guests so the numbers of people in the church for the baptisms can be anything from 20 to 200. Many of the people are unfamiliar with a church setting and there are usually several children.

During the service, parents with restless children are welcome to move to the Forum at the back of church and so it is important that the Children's Corner is a friendly, welcoming place for them. We have a low book shelf with a variety of books, some toddler toys and paper & crayons for colouring. Bethan, our church warden, is great at keeping it looking up to date and attractive.

The plan is to have colouring sheets available that match the Prayer Space theme.

This week for a baptism Sunday I've created these special sheets that can be folded into a card. Having coloured it in, a child can then give to the person being baptised, with the hope that the family will want to display it, if only for a short time.

I got the colouring artwork from http://catholicmom.com/ & http://www.biblekids.eu/

The verse inside the card emphasizes one of the points that the vicar makes as he goes through the service:

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith,

for all of you who were baptized into Christ

have clothed yourselves with Christ.

Galatians 3:26-27

As I usually act as verger during baptisms, I'll be able to see first-hand what the response is. This week there was only one family present and very few guests so I wasn't needed & I left the sheets out.  I'll review how they are received when there's been a larger group of people present.

Watch this space...

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Autumn Prayers review

The prayer station has been up for one week and there have been some compliments from people visiting the church but not many interactions.

As I said in the last post, there are some issues that need addressing.

1. There needs to be a clear title so that people can know what they might be looking at - this has been added.
2. The sticks and "cobwebs" are difficult to see against the dark wood panelling and the green plastic leaves (made from water bottles) actually disappear!  This needs to be thought through for the next installation.
3. Although the dais defines the prayer area, people seem unwilling to step up on it.  I think this is exasperated by the positioning of the 2 tables.  I'll look at whether they can be easily re-positioned this week.
4. The suggestions for interacting and the baskets of leaves for peoples' prayers need to be more visible and within easy reach.  Again, I'll look at that this week.
5. The side chapel is a good place for privacy and quiet but it also makes it hard for people to be aware of it. We need to somehow have visible pointers that are also unobtrusive during normal services...

Any helpful comments & suggestions are very welcome.  Either write them below or contact me directly.

Autumn Prayers

Our first open prayer station in St Stephen’s, Redditch has been installed.

“Open” because it will remain here for the next 3 weeks and be available whenever the church is open which is for most of the working week and on Sundays. Congregants, visitors, tourists are all welcome to engage with it, or not.

This first one is called “Autumn Prayers” or “Falling Prayers”.  The main visual inspiration for this came from Old Tractor Tin Shed's Blog.

The guidelines I've provided to engage with the prayer station are only suggestions and I'm hoping that people will feel free to do their own thing.

The Bible verses given are:

• Pray continually – 1 Thessalonians 5:17
• I cried….I prayed… He listened… I praised! Psalm 66:17-20
• I waited patiently for the Lord;    he turned to me and heard my cry. – Psalm 40:1
• Because He bends down to listen I will pray as long as I have breath – Psalm 116:2
• I took my troubles to the Lord; I cried out to Him and He answered my prayer. Psalm 120:1
• Let your hope make you glad.  Be patient in time of trouble & never stop praying. – Romans 12:12
• In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice;  in the morning I lay my requests before you  and wait expectantly.– Psalm 5:3
• In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. – Romans 8:26

The Autumn tables are covered in bronze coloured lining fabric and have leaves, bark and mossy sticks collected from our garden. Our Christmas decorations box has been raided to add pine cones.  There are a couple of conkers but most of the ones I found were too small and represented a choking hazard.

The cardboard "leaves" were made by putting real leaves on the card and then spraying with gold paint, removing the leaf.  The added bonus is that the gold spray caused the card to curl, making it more leaf-like.

Some Autumn-themed colouring sheets have been added to the children’s corner to tie in with the theme.  They were free printables from the Ministry to Children Website and Alisa Burke's Blog.  I'd like to be more creative with this corner but my current priority is to get the prayer space up to scratch.

There are a few things that need sorting out which became obvious as soon as I set this up and I’ll explore those in the next post.  Some can be resolved straight away but, because this will only be here for 3 weeks, some will feed into the next station design, which will be linked to the Messy Church we’ll be having on the theme of Noah’s Ark.  I’ll post on that late October.

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Our Town Centre Church

St Stephen's Church is in the centre of Redditch, on the edge of the Green.  It is a large Victorian building with a large open chancel & side chapel, pews filling the main body of the church and the rear had a 70s re-fit to provide a kitchen, office, shop & WC as well as a meeting area known as the Forum.

Although our Sunday gathered congregation tends to be small, between 25 and 30, we host the town civic services such as Remembrance Sunday, filling the church to over-flowing.

We host a Christian book and gift shop Mon-Sat, a cafe twice a week, a lunch-time drop-in once a week and a food bank three times a week.  Along with our church, the Green includes a pedestrian area, the war memorial and the Redditch Bandstand.  It is a central gathering point.

As people live, gather, shop and work in the town they wander in to St Stephens for coffee, for the loos, for company, for peace, to say a quick prayer.

Whilst hoping & praying to build up the gathered congregation, we are looking at ways to make the building a more interactive place.  We would like to encourage the interest that people have in the building and provide ways that enable them to engage with our spiritual life. Whilst encouraging visitors, we will need to celebrate the church's role as a place of worship rather than a museum.

Plans for a new glass door will improve access on the West side, nearest the bus stops. We have cleared some of the redundant items that have been hoarded over the years and set up a children's corner with some toys, books, paper & crayons.  A new church history has been written and about to be published.

We would like to have discreet labels for items such as the font and pulpit.  Other possibilities are colouring sheets based on our beautiful stained-glass windows, a treasure-hunt activity sheet and we'll be looking at ways in which other open churches have been creative.

One way that we're encouraging interaction in St Stephens is the creation of a prayer space in the side chapel. The first one will be set up this Saturday.  Look out for our next post...