On 8 June, St Bartholomew’s Church in Quorn had a double celebration service: the birth of God’s Church at Pentecost and the birth of St Bart’s 50 years ago, in its present entity as an Anglican and Methodist United Church.
The service was jointly led by the Rt Revd Martyn Snow, Bishop of Leicester, and Revd Karen Beecham, Methodist Circuit Superintendent and St Bart’s Methodist Minister.
It was an opportunity to gather together many people associated with St Bart’s from over the years, both past and present, Methodist and Anglican, lay and ordained. Among them was Revd Steve Heygate, whose son was the first to be baptised at the newly formed United Church.
In his sermon, Bishop Martyn reflected on St Bart’s retaining of its ‘United’ status for half a century. This, he said, was unusual in a world where splintering and separating were more the norm than collaboration and harmony. He reminded those present that diversity need not mean division, as the Holy Trinity perfectly demonstrates.
St Bart’s church has a very long history, with the earliest parts of the building dating from c.1150. By contrast, the first Methodist Chapel in Quorn was built in 1822 and later replaced with a larger one in 1907. The move to become a United Church began when an independent audit by a visiting Joint Ecumenical team suggested that maintaining both buildings posed an undesirable drain upon resources, both human and financial.
After the two churches united in 1975, joint services were held in both churches for a time. The last service at the Methodist Chapel was in July 1992, after which it was sold and developed into flats. The money raised helped to fund the extension of St Bart’s Church, which includes a kitchen, meeting room, vicar’s vestry and toilet facilities. The extension was dedicated by the then Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Dr. Thomas Butler, and the Chairman of the Oxford and Leicester Methodist District, Revd Eddie Lacy.
St Bart’s has Anglican governance but since Anglican incumbent Revd David Bowler retired almost four years ago the church has been essentially lay-led. Their large team of willing volunteers includes two Church Wardens, two Methodist Stewards, Associate Priest Revd Steve Delaforce, Lay Associate Minister Dawn Daly and Lay Associate Minister-in-training, Heulwen Howells, all supported by Methodist Minister Revd Karen.
St Bart’s is deeply rooted in the community which it serves. This was reflected by the congregation at the celebration service, with representatives present from the two local schools, Quorn Parish Council, and the Quorn Branch of the British Legion.
Quorn Baptist Church was also represented, who St Bart’s collaborate closely with in their family and schools ministry. They work together as joint Open the Book assembly team and school governors drawn from both churches are working hard to consolidate links with Rawlins Academy and St Bart’s CE Primary School.
As Quorn Churches Together, they also put on joint family craft sessions and a summer holiday club. The schools visit St Bart’s for seasonal assemblies and members help with workshops at the Baptist Church for pupils from the primary school. Dawn Daly and Heulwen Howells make school visits, leading assemblies and worship clubs, and students from Rawlins Academy are contributing to the church’s family service at the end of June.
Dawn sees the United Church’s 50th anniversary as a great example of life at St Bart’s and as a sign of an exciting future: “Although in this service we talked about the two denominations and have separate Methodist and Anglican communion services - which are remarkably similar - our church members don’t actually think in terms of being Methodist or Anglican," she says. "We just see ourselves as members of God’s Church, serving Him, each other and our community.
“This celebration service and the buffet lunch afterwards involved nearly all the members of our church family in some way. With new people joining the church and four young people confirmed last October, we are very much looking forward to the next 50 years in the life of our church!”