A blog from Diocesan Lead for Transformation and Change, Nikki Groarke about conversations taking place in each of our churches over the next couple of months as we continue on our journey to improve the health and sustainability of our churches
Churches across the diocese baptised new people into the faith on Easter Day.
Heather Murphy has recently been appointed as Children, Youth and families Minister for three churches in Worcester that already work closely together.
The Lightbox team braved the rain on Good Friday to offer activities as well as free food and drink to young people in Worcester City Centre.
Last month St Peter’s in Bengeworth opened a Community Café inside the church called ‘The Point’. The café opens every Tuesday morning and aims to be a welcoming space for those who might not have been in the church before.
Two new starters will shortly be joining our diocesan Transformation support hub. Sharon Boardman will be joining us as Transformation Project Manager, and Fiona Edlington as Parish, HR and Recruitment Adviser.
St John’s Greenlands in Redditch has a thriving New Worshipping Community for families and children called ‘Activity Church’ which runs at the same time as their traditional Sunday morning service, in the adjacent church hall.
An independent review of the Mission Accompaniers scheme has found that it effectively prepared churches for mission.
A learning community has been launched for Renewal and Resourcing Church leaders to support each other as they journey together on their missions to revitalise existing churches and grow the Kingdom.
In conversation with local groups supporting adults with additional needs, St Mary’s church in Oldswinford has created a service, which is designed to be accessible for all.
Janet Fox has worked as our Clergy Development Officer for the past year. She came from an NHS background with significant experience in coaching and mediation, and during her first twelve months has spent time getting to know clergy to understand how we can best support their ongoing development and wellbeing.
Matt Cook is the Children and Youth worker for Harvington Youth Project and has been in post seven months. St James the Great is part of the ARCH benefice and has a small congregation on Sundays, however they work together with the Baptist church as the steering group for Harvington’s thriving youth project.
Bishop Martin visited the church of St Peter and St Paul in Rock on Sunday to celebrate the creation of the Muddy Boots Mission Area. As part of the service, people from across the 26 churches in the area committed to praying and working together.
Today, on Ash Wednesday, following a service to mark the start of Lent and the giving of Ashes at Church of the Ascension in Wall Heath, Mission Priest Sarah Roberts-Malpass and Curate Chris Smith, visited the nearby high street to offer ‘Ashes to go’ to passersby.
As more children, youth and families’ workers have been recruited in the diocese over the last few years, the diocesan Programme Lead for Children and Young People, Simon Hill, has created a Children, Youth and Families Ministry Network for paid workers.
Kirsty Pierson has been recruited by iSingPOP and seconded to the Diocese to work with seven churches initially as part of a pilot project to strengthen links between schools and churches, bringing local families into this one community.
An exciting new partnership for 2025, between the Diocese and iSingPOP, was launched at a breakfast event at St Wulstan’s Worcester on Thursday 6 February.
Sarah Roberts-Malpass has been licensed as the Anglo-Catholic Mission Priest for Kingswinford and Wall Heath, one of our renewal parishes. Her role is funded by the national church and will be very outward focussed, taking the church into the local community.
On the last Saturday in January, teams from churches who are part of the Myriad learning community, and are hosting and developing New Worshipping Communities, met together for the next session. This group first met this time last year.
A new guide to New Worshipping Communities (NWCs) in the Diocese has been launched. It will support parishes who are looking to find creative ways of reaching people beyond our existing congregations as we look to reach our target of creating 100 NWCs by 2030.
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29th April 2025