Bishop Mark preaching at Holy Trinity Jesmond on Pentecost Sunday. The café style church was part of this year's Love Your Community initiative.
A church community project which began during Covid has evolved into a wider-ranging initiative which was a key part of the Jesmond Festival this year.
By Ian Farrimond, Reader, Holy Trinity Jesmond
For all churches, the Coronavirus pandemic which hit in 2020 changed a lot of thinking when it came to provision of services and access to the church community. Online services became the norm, with some very creative solutions being used.
For Holy Trinity Jesmond, one thing developed at that time was a project known as ‘Love Our Community’ which in May 2024 had its fifth, and somewhat different, edition.
“Love Our Community was a way in which we looked to connect with our parish, even though we could not meet together in church,” said Revd Tim Sanderson, Vicar of Holy Trinity.
“The original thinking was to hold a week in July, near the start of the school summer holidays, where we could go into the parish to do litter picking and garden tidying as a way of serving people, while still adhering to Government guidance on separation and numbers of people who could meet together etc. As restrictions started to ease, we introduced a pop-up café in the church building and also took coffee out to offer to people we met in the streets.
“It was a way of letting people in the parish know that we were still open as a church and we still cared about the people of the parish in those difficult times.”
Love Our Community worked in this way from 2020 until 2023. For the fifth edition in 2024, it was decided to change how it was delivered and link it into a slightly wider area.
“After Love our Community in 2023, the Staff Team at HTJ sat down and reviewed how it had run over the previous few years,” said Tim.
“We realised that July was a problem in terms of recruiting volunteers, as people were planning for summer holidays and so a lot of work fell on the Staff Team. For 2024 we decided to link in with the well-established Jesmond Festival in May and offer the church as one of the venues for events. This has proved to be very successful.”
For the period of the Jesmond Festival, HTJ offered a café space on Wednesdays, as well as running events such a quiz night and a ceilidh, and opening existing groups such as Vintage, for Senior Citizens, and Trinity Tots, a parent/carer and toddler group up to the wider community, and the HT Walks walking group. There was also a Messy Church held over the Pentecost weekend - eight dedicated events over a four-week timescale.
“All of these events proved successful, with people coming to them who were not church members, having seen them in the Jesmond Festival programme or the banners on and around church,” said Tim.
“The Vintage Afternoon Tea and Trinity Tots Teddy Bears’ Picnic saw visitors into the church for the first time. Some of those visitors have now become members of those groups.”
Sunday services were not forgotten. Pentecost fell within the festival timetable and HTJ was delighted to welcome back the Rt Revd Mark Wroe, Bishop of Berwick and former Vicar at HTJ, to preach at a café style church, while an outdoor (and thankfully in glorious sunshine) eco-service was also enjoyed by church members and visitors.
This service was part of HTJ’s work in gaining further Green Accreditation, as Curate and HTJ Green Accreditation lead, Revd Ali McCarthy, explained: “We took the story of the mustard seed as the basis for the service, and talked about the impact the smallest of seeds can have,” she said.
“We had de-gradable pots, compost, and seeds ready so that part way through the service people could plant seeds to take home and nurture. We also looked at measuring trees in the grounds to see which were approximately the height of the Mustard Tree mentioned in the story.
"As a church we take our Green Accreditation seriously” said Ali.
“We already have Silver Accreditation and are putting things in pace to allow us to go for gold. We have changed electricity suppliers to a more green producer, changed our bank accounts to more ethical and green banks and societies, but there is still more to be done. It will take time, but we hope that by having regular services such as the one in May and keeping the congregation in touch with sustainable living as much as possible, we will continue to improve things so that HTJ will gain that important Gold Accreditation.”
So is 2024 the template for future editions of Love Our Community at HTJ?
“It is a bit early to say," said Tim. "As we have only just finished this edition. We will sit down as a Staff Team and evaluate how things went, But I think there is a good chance we will link with the festival in future.”
Watch this space!