Intro

During the autumn, 2016, we were contacted by David Grice, the newly appointed Church community worker at Chelsea Christian Centre.  David was interested in finding out more about how to effectively connect with the local schools in his local area in ways that were beneficial for the schools and their wider communities.

Story

We have met up with David numerous times to chat through possible ways of supporting their local schools and to work through how to make positive and meaningful connections. The church put on a pop up nativity on Christmas Eve (resources provided by the Bible Society) which they advertised to their nearest school community after school one day, by handing out fliers and hot chocolate near the Bristol to Bath cycle track. The result was that over 100 people from the local community attended! Early in 2017, David arranged a couple of introductory meetings with head teachers from local primary schools to see what positive connections could be made between the school and the church. The outcome was that two of the schools participated in the Noise project, and a team came into the schools to help with jobs around the school grounds. The schools were really pleased with the help they had received. In December 2016 and in March 2017 – David came to two training events run by BSC about how to run Christian perspective Christmas and Easter workshops/trails for local schools. David is now in the process of gathering a team and preparing to run a Christmas workshop in December. We have been involved with providing resources and support to envision and equip his church to run this workshop. It has been a privilege to journey with David so far, and we are looking forward to supporting him further as the story goes on.

Testimonial

Bristol Schools Connection were a great resource for me when I was starting to think about going into schools in the Easton area. Jane and Liz have a load of practical advice and experience to share – without their help it would have taken me a lot longer to start up our schools’ work.

– David Grice, 2017