St. John’s has been celebrating our 150th anniversary. The church was consecrated on 23rd March 1858 and we chose our Patronal Festival (24th June) around which to focus our celebrations.
We started with a Flower Festival in which there were 22 exhibits from organisations within the church and the community. The young people played an important role in our celebrations starting with an art workshop to design a cover for the DVD they were making of people’s memories of the church and village of Purbrook. But the young in heart were also invited to take part.
A very popular part of our celebrations was the “trip down memory lane” exhibition of photographs, memorabilia and the parish registers. We were also treated to a play about the building of St. John’s and a Guides’ campfire.
A major part of our celebrations focussed on different services to which we had invited guest preachers, including the Bishop of Portsmouth. The Bishop blessed the new altar cloth made for the anniversary to which 54 people had contributed by embroidering a letter making the quotation from the Bible “though we are many we are one body because we all share one bread.”
It was a “first” for Purbrook Infants’ and Junior Schools when they came to St. John’s to share our celebrations with music. A full church enjoyed listening to the children singing and playing their instruments as our eyes wandered over their artwork displayed in church, enhancing yet further our church building.
The festivities finished with a party for children, which included a performance by St. John’s puppet group, a young people’s disco provided by the young people themselves and a social evening for the adults during which they were filmed for the DVD about their memories of St. John’s.
And to round it all off we attended the Ordination of our Ordinand, Trevor Filtness to the Diaconate at Portsmouth Cathedral on Sunday 29th June and said goodbye to him at a supper afterwards.
The celebrations have included many people and reached many more. About 1600 people passed through the church and hall over the 10 days of celebration and enjoyed their time at St. John’s. Now we are looking forward to doing our work to make sure the congregation in 150 years’ time has much to celebrate.
|
