Church Projects

Facilitating Interfaith Activity is a project aimed at fostering meaningful dialogue and collaboration among diverse religious communities. This initiative seeks to create inclusive spaces where individuals from different faith backgrounds can come together to share perspectives, promote understanding, and cultivate mutual respect.

Since 2007, Prayer Spaces in Schools has been creating safe, creative spaces for children and young people to reflect and pray. We are working with RE Today to produce lesson plans and other resources for teachers and volunteers to deliver wraparound teaching supporting the prayer space experience. We’re also providing an updated multi-language ‘How to Get Started’ video course for volunteers, and updating our website to improve engagement and keep resources available!

Threads through the Bible’ is an astonishing and inspiring exhibition of textile art, touring cathedrals from 2025.  It consists of 44 huge silk panels re-imagining key parts of the Bible.  Christian artist Jacqui Parkinson has spent ten years creating the panels, making what is probably the largest ever textile art project by a single person.  The artwork is very attractive and accessible:  it speaks to people of all ages and backgrounds and gives them a closer and enjoyable view of the bible.

 

The Linking Lives over-60s activity group at Mossley Hill church has been running for about 6 years and our main aim is to bring together people who are isolated or lonely for friendship and company. We meet weekly throughout the year and many members have now developed friendships outside of this time and keep in touch.

The majority of the group have some degree of mobility difficulty and so we provide minibus transport to the church and home again, most people would be unable to attend without this and this is the service for which we have very kindly been funded.

Keynsham Girls’ Brigade wanted to learn about Christmas around the World so they set about a research project which included listening to stories from families about their traditions and learning where the different traditions originate from. They produced displays which were displayed in two community venues over the Christmas Period, as well as volunteering at the Winter Festival and Christmas Messy Church where they share some of the things they had been learning.

Let’s Go Time Travelling
Southwell Minster’s Time Travelling programme supports Religious Education teaching in Nottinghamshire. More than 1,500 primary school children visit the Minster each year to take part in pilgrimage days, where they learn about Christianity through lively workshops and creative activities. The programme is joyful and inclusive, focusing on the power of faith to transform lives.

There’s no better way to embed and deepen classroom RE learning than by taking part in workshops that bring faith and tradition to life. Southwell Minster is proud to work with teachers and schools across Nottinghamshire and beyond through the generous support of Westhill.

Community Centenary Window
Francis of Assisi C of E Church in Bournville is approaching its 100th year anniversary in 2025 and one of the many ways in which hope to be celebrating this notable milestone is to create a stained-glass window using ideas from the entire Bournvillian community and beyond!

Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Community and Christ Church Bexleyheath
Since July 2022, the Project Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Community (UOAC) in collaboration with Anglican Christ Church Bexleyheath have created a vital lifeline for Ukrainians in South East London. This initiative offers humanitarian aid, wellbeing support, language classes, and crafts sessions to help community members integrate into the UK, whilst still preserving and practicing their cultural heritage. Additionally, the community has established a Ukrainian School.

The reading Passion Play
Rise Theatre’s brand new, original, open air Passion Play took place in Forbury Gardens in Reading town centre in March 2024, as part of an ecumenical Easter Festival organised by The Gate. This free event for the people of Reading and the surrounding area attracted large crowds to reflect on and celebrate the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ during the Easter weekend.

Performed by a cast of professional actors, Rise Theatre brought their unique style to create an emotionally impacting performance. Plans are now in place to perform it again in Reading during Easter 2025.

Creative Soul
Nine Elms Arts Ministry have been delivering creative projects in the Nine Elms development area of London since 2018. They launched Creative Soul, a free Creative Health and Wellbeing programme, in 2022 to help nurture holistic wellbeing and bring the diverse communities together. Creative Soul Café offers opportunities for mindful craft activities in popular venues for local residents.

Creative Soul Parents sessions focus on supporting parents from local primary schools in their own wellbeing and encouraging their creativity through a range of art forms. A new programme, Creative Soul Space, is also planned. This will offer opportunities for gently exploring Christian spirituality through creative and immersive experiences.

Whilst awareness of poor mental health and wellbeing has grown, national statistics demonstrate men still report lower levels of life satisfaction than women and are less likely to access support. Whilst the Life Garage hasn't specifically been designed just for men, it has been created to open the well-being world to a different audience using the metaphor of the car, garage, and toolboxes. Rooted in psycho-social principles, The Life Garage adopts the perspective that we service our cars so they run well, so why not service our lives so we live life well.

Community and Schools Graffiti Project
The project will see a partnership between the church, three local primary schools and three different artists to create a new public art exhibition as part of the churches annual arts festival, but also leave an artistic legacy in one of the local primary schools. The project will see a mural painted as part of the churches work with that school, as well as a graffiti artist working with pupils in our three local primary schools to help them design, create and learn the skills to paint the work themselves.

The Open to All Exhibition is a tour of paintings in UK Cathedrals and large city centre churches to spread the message of God’s inclusivity. A partnership between fine artist Elizabeth Gray-King and Open Table Network, a charity supporting churches to welcome LGBTQI+ people and their advocates, the purpose is to open and continue dialogue amongst affirming Christians and people who visit their churches.

Our rationale is that large city centre sites welcome visitors and, in that process, can share the reality of God’s inclusivity to a wider and more varied set of visitors than local congregations.

The Stroud Festival of Wonder held in November was designed to inspire wonder in an age of exhaustion. It offered a weekend of free activities centred around 5 spectacular circus performances, Magnificat!, based around the story of Mary saying ‘yes’ to the Angel Gabriel.

This free weekend proved a huge success for attendees of all ages with other events including dance, comedy, magic and music. The festival was based at St Laurence Church: the Stroud Centre for Peace and the Arts. Organiser Phil Coysh said, “This free event for the Stroud community received huge community interest with over 2,000 attending and support from over 100 volunteers. We are grateful to our funders for making this festival possible. It was truly a wonderful and deeply spiritual weekend.

Prayer Spaces in Schools
Off The Fence's Schools and Youth programme offers wrap-around support to over 500 young people across Brighton & Hove in 6 local schools. They offer 1-to-1 mentoring, Prayer Spaces, lunch clubs and Summer Schools to provide respite from troubled home lives and aid educational and social development.

Through the generous support of Westhill, their programme has developed further sensory-enriching faith-based education through light, sound and textures in their Prayer Spaces - ensuring each child feels fully supported through extracurricular sessions.

Many people want to pray but don’t know how or where to begin. The wonderful thing is that Christian nuns and monks have spent decades seeking God and learning how to overcome obstacles to prayer. Their wisdom and practices can help people encounter God in fresh and fulfilling ways.

Discovering Prayer’s guided prayer times and short online courses draw on these insights to help people learn how to pray. We are now developing an exciting new mobile app to enable thousands more to get into a life-changing rhythm of prayer.

Toc H will deliver a programme of inclusive and reflective wellbeing support sessions to homeless and vulnerably housed adults in Blackpool South Shore. This work will be offered in partnership with St Peter’s Church and we hope will be the beginning of long and meaningful programme of work in the area. Blackpool South Shore has a limited number of free-to-access support services for adults experiencing homelessness and addiction, despite the high need in the area. These sessions will offer welcome and hope to those who need it most.

Asylum seekers welcome and love project

Trinity Church Central London has grown from 1 to 88 Asylum seekers (+123 online with a significant presence in a Middle Eastern Country) in the last 18 months.

We help with clothes, a simple cooked meal on Sunday, transport to Church where needed and money for emergency food (where Children cannot eat the hotel food which is different from the food they are used to). We also offer help to process trauma for Asylum seekers and a safe space for friendship and community.  

 

Restored is a Christian charity with a mission to speak up about the realities of violence against women and girls, and to equip the Church to stand against domestic abuse and support survivors. We’re building a network of Restored Beacon churches: churches that never tolerate abuse, but instead provide a safe refuge for survivors, journey with them on their road to recovery, and demonstrate God’s deep love for them.

Lichfield Cathedral is undertaking a year-long project to restore its central spire and increase engagement with its heritage. To do this, we are creating a community theatre project bringing to life the stories of the people connected with the founding of the Cathedral, including St Chad and Bishop Headda, and countless of pilgrims who have visited the Cathedral from AD700 to the present day.

Empowering the church to safely help offenders live crime free lives

Sixty-One helps prisoners and ex-prisoners lead meaningful crime-free lives within Greater Bristol. We do this by inspiring, enabling and supporting the local community to provide the relational and practical support offenders need.

Much of our activity is partnership based, particularly with churches. Westhill’s' funding will be used to fund our work supporting church-based Hubs. These provide regular community-based support to small groups of ex-prisoners. This support, combined with a local community connection, can make a profound impact on the offender’s life, and chance of reoffending.

Coventry & Warwickshire Worldviews: Images That Speak

Our project aims to create a professional photograph pack which will reflect the diverse nature of our local communities as a rich resource for the teaching of RE in this area.

The digital photo pack will include professional photographs, taken by Mark Pemberton, which collate the places of worship in our locality and will also document local themes of ‘peace’ and ‘reconciliation’.

Encountering and Understanding Different Faiths

Leeds SACRE are making a film of an Orthodox Synagogue so that schools which are unable to visit will be able to access a professionally made film which shows and explains the interior of the Synagogue.

This resource could also be used prior to, (or following) a Synagogue visit to prepare children for what they might expect to see. This film will be suitable for KS2 and KS3 pupils to explore the interior of a Synagogue with a comprehensive explanation of the various parts of the Synagogue and the artefacts contained within and how they are used.

Church Engagement

The Cinnamon Network makes it as easy as possible for local churches to set up sustainable social action projects, find funding and get the right support and training to make a positive impact.

To achieve this, they collaborate with a network of 37 grass-roots social action charities – known as the Cinnamon Recommended Projects. They are investing in the growth of this network, and together unlock the potential of churches of all denominations across the UK to make a difference in their communities. Please read on to find out more.

Westhill Endowment’s grant will allow Transforming Lives for Good (TLG) to open 47 new Early Intervention centres across the UK from 2023-2024 in partnership with local churches. This will train 235 new volunteer coaches to get alongside 230 children in school, who are facing a variety of difficulties.

By letting them know someone cares and encouraging them to reengage with their education, we are able to combat the devastating impact of COVID-19 lockdowns and the cost-of-living crisis on these already-disadvantaged children’s emotional and mental wellbeing.

Relational Hub Collective

Relational Hub supports youth workers and their organisations to create sustainable youth work projects that provide a home away from home for the young people who need one most.

The Small House: Art Installation

Each year a monumental artwork of museum quality is installed as part of Southwark Cathedral’s annual art installation series. The artwork is intended to give people new access points to the Cathedral, through an exploration of unconventional materials and mediums.

The 2022 installation is entitled “The Small House”, and sees artist Richard Woods work with a 2D cartoon depiction of a terraced house, constructed out of wood, with themes including housing, homelessness, the cost of living crisis, and environmental sustainability.

As part of the church's ongoing support of our local community we established a network of little libraries around 7 years ago which has expanded most years and now totals 9 libraries in a mixture of public spaces and primary school settings.

3 years ago we set up a network of little pantries with the simple idea that people could place food in them or take as needed, we have discovered these to be a real blessing to our local community.

Change Makers: Next Steps

Seedbeds runs Change Makers to bring together small groups of adults nominated from their local communities because they are seen to have the potential to become community leaders. This 5 month emerging community leaders programme culminates with the Change Maker pitching their idea for change to a Resource Panel. Scholarships are provided to make the programmes as accessible as possible.

Through Westhill’s support a new version of Change Makers will be offered at a Level III NCFE qualification in ‘Sustainable Community Leadership’. As many of our participants have no qualifications, we hope this recognised qualification could further a pathway of educational and vocational growth.

Festivals - Come and Celebrate.

Keynsham Girls’ Brigade is planning a series of displays at Victoria Methodist Church and Key Centre - Easter, Pentecost, Christmas, Fair Trade, Harvest and the Environmental importance of gardens. They will be informative, multi-sensory, thought provoking and accessible to different ages and abilities. They will also produce smaller displays in the Baptist Church garden which opens onto Keynsham High Street.

Through replacing out-dated technology with new digital and wi-fi resources, we aim to enrich the experiences of children within our Sunday School, and the young people in our Youth Club. As a congregation, we hope to transform our ability to present the gospel in contemporary ways, both within our church and beyond its doors.

Our hope is to evolve into a ‘hybrid church’, as we continue with our ‘live’ activities whilst also utilising broadcasts of church services and celebrations via social media platforms. We will also explore the potential for collaborative worship with other Welsh language churches, both locally and nationally.

Local community

Millions of families are facing not knowing where the next meal is coming from, so The Message Community Grocery is here to help. Inside a Grocery you’ll find a range of food option and families can join for £5 annual membership. This gives them access to three healthy shops per week at £3 per shop (worth £30+) as well as access to a range of support courses that are accessible to the whole family.