A newly-formed children's choir at St Thomas Cantilupe Church of England School in Hereford has enjoyed another milestone celebration this Christmas with Choir Church. They were supported by the ministry team at West Hereford and have spent the past term exploring themes of light and dark as well as learning traditional choral music.
Lois Beynon, Curate at West Hereford Team, Herefordshire Diocesan Ecumenical Officer and chair of Churches Together in Hereford explains:
"Last year we established our first choir church. It was highly successful and we were delighted to be invited back to one of the local Church of England schools in the parish, this September.
"As part of Choir Church, we’ve explored the eucharist and learning about how we can shine our light in the darkness to encourage others. This has involved linking to a local care home and at the end of term celebrating success with a choral evensong service."
Andrew Teale, Director for Education at Hereford Diocese added:
“Music lessons are expensive and with ever increasing pressure on household incomes, extracurricular activities are often sacrificed.
“I am delighted that St Thomas Cantilupe Church of England School decided to make Choir Church a core element of this term’s Y5 and Y6 curriculum activities for all the children.
“It was a beautiful service. A full church with primary school children singing choral music very proficiently. Parents and grandchildren came to watch and joined in with the service which was very inclusive.
“I would love to see this project grow across the diocese, as it beautifully connects home, church and school, in a way that everyone enjoyed. It gave us all a huge lift, and everyone left the church smiling.”
Choir Church Foundation supports those wishing to plant Choir Church. It is a model for new worshipping communities, built around children’s choirs in schools, led in partnership with local churches. It offers worship, musical excellence, and spiritual formation designed to build and grow congregations, working for social justice. While it is principally school-based, its worship is open to the wider community of parents, teachers, neighbours and friends. The project began in London at St George-in-the-East in 2016 and is working with a number of individual churches and dioceses to grow more Choir Churches.