Bishop Hugh has visited St James’ Church in Malvern to bless their orchard as well as their Orchard Church New Worshipping Community, as work starts to create an eco-pond and ‘pilgrim path’ through the orchard.
St John’s church in Halesowen recently launched a new worshipping community in partnership with a local charity called Halas Homes, to make church more accessible for their service users; vulnerable adults with disabilities and learning difficulties.
St John Halesowen’s first iSingPop Worship ‘PopUp Church’ launched last week, at Halesowen CE Primary, aiming to engage local families and help bring church and school together as one community.
Families@4 is a new worshipping community at St Peter’s Church in Ipsley. Throughout 2026, they decided to theme their programme around learning about God’s creation and have created a garden in which the children and their families are growing vegetables and flowers.
Steve Hollinghurst, our diocesan New Worshipping Communities Lead, is inviting churches looking to start or grow New Worshipping Communities (NWCs) to join the national C of E initiative called ‘Greenhouse’. Churches joining Greenhouse have the freedom to choose what resources and support will be most helpful.
The parish of Teme Valley South held their annual Lambing Café Church service last weekend at a local farm.
POP-up Church is a New Worshipping Community set up at St John’s Church in Kidderminster in partnership with St John’s CE Primary school, following an iSingPOP main event in school in January 2025. Last weekend they celebrated their one-year anniversary!
A service of celebration for Authorised Lay Ministers (ALMs) was held at the Cathedral on Saturday 24 January. This year’s ALMs have been trained to become children and youth work ministers, worship leaders or New Worshipping Community (NWC) ministers.
Church of the Ascension in Wall Heath host ‘Soul Food’ NWC every other Tuesday evening from 5pm. In their last session before Christmas the theme was ‘joy and connection’. As well as discussing this theme, they also demonstrated it, filling shoeboxes with gifts for families in need.
Debra Hill is Children, Families and Youth worker for five churches in the Worcester South East team with St Barnabas, in a post that is in part financed by the Healthier Churches Fund. Here Debra reflects on her first year in the role.
St John’s church in Halesowen welcomed over 90 people on Saturday 15 November for a special Messy Church, which included a film-showing of 'The Snowman' by candlelight, bringing the whole community together!
Parishes across the Diocese working with Kirsty Pierson from iSingPOP this year, have reported how much this support has helped them reach new families and children. We hope it will be possible to extend the pilot to see how this initial success can be further embedded and built on.
In January 2026 Claines Church, will be launching a new and exciting church service for children called ‘Bubble Church’. This has been made possible thanks to a grant from the ‘Healthier Churches Fund’.
At St Thomas’ Church in Stourbridge, members of ‘Chewsday Church’ have recently unveiled a large cross, intentionally crafted with a rough and imperfect surface to reflect the brokenness of our world.
The Revd Steve Hollinghurst has been appointed as our New Worshipping Communities Lead. Steve is joining our Transformation Support Hub team, which is funded by the national church, replacing Kim Brown.
Former CE primary school teacher Louise Hicklin recently started as Children and Families’ Worker at St John the Baptist Church in Halesowen. Thanks to this appointment and the installation of new toilets, St John’s Church have been able to launch their first Messy Church.
In this short film Paul Wilcox from West Worcester Beacon Benefice shares how their three New Worshipping Communities have led to the growth of their main congregation at Hallow.
During the first week of August, Kingswinford parish hosted an exciting iSingPOP holiday club at St Mary’s Church featuring iSingPops catchy worship tunes and dance moves. The club proved hugely popular, with attendance peaking at 53 children.
Back in May, St John’s church in Halesowen which is one of our Renewal projects, launched a post GCSE exam chill-out space for year 11s nicknamed 'Donut Club' which was really popular. They're now building on that success by offering a Bibles and Brunch session to the same group.
A new half-hour monthly act of worship is taking place at St Kenelm’s Church in Clifton-on-Teme, with people of all ages gathering outside for Welly Church!
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16th August 2026