A NEW religious hub will be officially opened in Coleford by the Church of England’s first diocesan woman bishop.
Bishop of Gloucester, Rachel Treweek, will launch ‘Church on the Street’ on Saturday (March 25) – a new parish office, meeting space and bookshop, which will be a hub for the Mid-Wyedean Churches following last year’s closure of the town’s St John the Evangelist church.
The new parish facility is opening at the former Great Oaks Hospice Shop in St John’s Street.
And Rev Sarah Bick said: “Following the sad closure of St John the Evangelist in Boxbush Road, the parochial church council and congregations of the parish are pleased to be opening ‘Church on the Street’.
“It may not be a church in the sense we are used to, but it will be a point of contact between church and community, a place of hospitality and prayer, and we hope a venue for meeting some of the needs of local people.”
Mid-Wyedean Churches, along with other Christian churches in the area, are founding partners of the Coleford Forest Foodbank and say they are keen to respond to other community needs.
Rev Bick added: “We have some plans of our own, such as working with CAB to provide help with form-filling and advocacy, but what we most want at this stage is to hear other people’s ideas about how we can serve our local community.”
And she appealed to people to come and share their ideas with them, either on Saturday morning, or any other time.
The parish is also running a Heritage Lottery Fund-backed ‘sharing heritage’ project to gather the social history of St John’s, which closed after 137 years of worship last September.
Church commissioners claimed the church needed repairs totalling £1.8m, leaving them with no alternative but to close one of the largest places of worship in the Dean.
Campaigners who fought unsuccessfully to save the church claimed the size of the repair bill was grossly exaggerated and was more likely to have been around £30,000.
The Grade II-listed Victorian building was put on the market by Gloucester Diocese for an asking price of £500,000 in January.
Parish co-ordinator Alison Stuttard, who will be working from the new office, said: “One of the first important pieces of work we are tackling from our new hub is the heritage project focusing on collecting memories, stories, photographs and documents relating to St John’s Church.
“Saturday morning is an open morning to launch that project, as well as to mark the opening of the office and shop.”
The ‘sharing heritage’ project launch runs from 10am-1pm this Saturday, with the official opening with Bishop Treweek at 11.30am.
Parish office opening hours are 10am-1pm, Monday to Friday, and the King of Kings bookshop is open 10am-4pm, Tuesday to Friday, and 10am-1pm, Saturday.
Contact 01594 368849 for the office and 01594 829323 for the shop.