Today, on Ash Wednesday, to mark the start of Lent, Mission Priest Sarah Roberts-Malpass took to the streets and visited a Kingswinford shopping parade to offer ‘Ashes to go’ to passersby.
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!
Yesterday to mark the 85th anniversary of the formation of the Air Training Corps, a special service was held at St Mary’s church in Kingswinford, attended by Bishop Hugh.
Over the past seven months St Stephen’s Church in Redditch has been regularly present on Ward 12, a dementia ward at the Alexandra Hospital, offering music as a simple but powerful way of meeting people where they are.
By 2030 we plan to renew around 12 churches across the Diocese so that every major population area has at least one larger church with 150 attendees. This film seeks to showcase and celebrate the progress so far.
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.
Gornal and Sedgley parish have been very encouraged recently by a new member of their congregation. Since joining in September Andy has attended every week and within a few months sought to renew and affirm his baptismal vows.
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.
Many people will come into our churches for Christmas services who might not attend at other times of the year. This provides great opportunities including informing your local community of exciting things coming up. Here are some ways in which our renewal churches are planning to do that.
A new service for families has been launched at St James’ the Great Church in Blakedown, just outside of Kidderminster, using iSingPOP songs and the PopBox resource. The launch event for iSing Blakedown last Sunday attracted 18 children and around 40 adults to the small church.
The Redditch Toy Appeal organised by the Redditch Mission Area has helped provide Christmas presents for over 1000 children this year! With more referred than ever before, staff from the diocesan team, including Archdeacon Nikki volunteered to help.
St Stephen’s Church in Redditch has hosted a gathering of Christians in education from across the West Midlands. The event aimed to connect school staff, volunteers and students across the region to find creative ways of working together to share the gospel.
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!
Joseph Diwakar was appointed as the diocesan Director of Mission and Ministry earlier this year, taking up his new role in June. We caught up with him to find out how his first few months have been and his plans for the Equipping Ministers for Mission underpinning diocesan priority.
As another year draws to a close, Archdeacon Nikki provides an update on our journey of transformation and change. Where have we reached key milestones? What does the next stage of the journey look like? Are we still heading towards the same ultimate destination?
Members of St Stephen’s Church in Redditch have been sharing hope in different locations across Redditch, offering people free tea and coffee and a chance to talk about faith and about anything which might be worrying them.
Gail Rogers, Vicar of Beoley and Alvechurch explains how an iSingPop workshop in the local first school resulted in a joyful Café Church with 27 children attending.
Claines played host to a joyful family ‘Light Trail’ during the half term holiday, which ninety people participated in. Ten households in Claines decorated their homes as “light stops,” each displaying a word that formed part of a Bible verse, for participants to unscramble.
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.
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19th February 2026