www.ipsley.org

Proclaiming God's Love to Parish & People Through Faith in Action

Services

Combined family service St Peter's has four different congregations (one meeting in our local church school and known as St Peter's in Winyates) that provide a variety of styles of worship. The ethos of the church is best described as open evangelical. This number of services is possible because of the involvement of many lay people in leading and preaching. The Family services at St Peter's and St Peter's in Winyates are informal with a café style service once a month. The morning service at 11.15 follows common worship and is traditional in style. The Evening Service is a service of the word or communion and aims to provide deeper teaching. A number of people use their musical gifts with a variety of instruments to lead the sung worship. Both organ and more contemporary music are used.

Mid-week and wider activities

Carols in Winyates Centre A wide range of activities are held during the week. There are eight house groups, a monthly lunch club and monthly coffee morning. Other groups meeting to support various aspects of church life include a World Mission Action Group and a Trade Justice Group. The practice of meeting for morning prayers each day has developed in recent years and is valued by a number of people. We have links with the community through schools, with clergy regularly taking assemblies at the local First and Middle schools in Winyates. Lay people are involved in running lunch time activities at Ipsley C of E middle school. We have been able to promote our Christmas and Easter services at a local supermarket. Much positive contact is made with families through visits relating to baptisms, thanksgivings, weddings and funerals.

Alpha courses, marriage preparation courses and Bishop's certificate courses are led by lay teams.

Children and Young People

A range of groups meet during the week. These include Scramblers, a mothers and toddlers group catering for non-church children, Birds of Pray (11-13 year olds) and Inspyre (14-18 year olds) and all cater for those with no church background as well as church families. The After Eights (14-18 year olds) meet monthly after an evening service with the aim of providing some deeper Christian teaching to this age group. There is also age related teaching, monthly or twice monthly at the Family Services.

Where We Meet

St Peter's, Ipsley St Peter's meets in an attractive church building, which is approximately 700 years old with evidence of an earlier structure dating back 1,000 years. It is a Grade II* listed building. Total seating capacity is about 130. The building consists of a nave and chancel with a west tower. The north and south aisles were taken down during the 19th Century. The Bell Tower has a modern gantry of six bells which are rung mainly at weddings.

In 2008 a new contemporary stained glass window, ´The Holy Spirit´, by Tom Denny, was installed to celebrate the quiet but powerful work of the Holy Spirit, particularly seen in the spiritual and physical growth of the church in the parish during the 30 early years of the Redditch New Town Development. In 2009 the church building was internally refurbished to provide a beautiful, comfortable and welcoming place of worship which speaks of God's love and grace to all people.

A large modern Church Centre, including offices, conference rooms, kitchen and storage was built with a link to the north side of the church in 1993. The premises are extensively used by the church, deanery and diocese, and by a number of other community groups including St John's Ambulance, the local housing agency and the Redditch Child Minders Association. Both The Law Society, which has national offices next door, and the international engineering company GKN plc, whose international headquarters is adjacent to our site, use the Church Centre for training and meetings.
    © St. Peter's 2010