Using Our Talents to Support Worship

We are a creative Parish, using our talents not only for our own pleasure but also to enrich our services with music and art. There are many opportunities to enjoy using your skills, or learn new ones and make new friends in the process.

St Mary’s Tower  in Kidlington has a peal of eight bells, ranging from the Tenor weighing in at over one ton to the Treble. The bells are rung regularly from 9.20am each Sunday, at weddings, festivals and for events of national importance. We are members of the Oxford City Branch of the Oxford Diocesan Guild of Church Bell Ringers. We often welcome visiting ringers and also visit other towers. The ringers meet at 9.15am for the 10am Sunday service and from 7.30pm-9pm on Tuesdays to practise. We would welcome new ringers, both experienced and those wishing to start from scratch.

Bellringing was not possible during the pandemic and Sunday mornings were not the same, so we are delighted to be back and ringing again.

If you would like more information, please email Lesley via the Parish Office.

The Making Group started in 2015, to offer a chance to respond creatively to the Lent study theme, by making a series of installations in church, using art and craft techniques. Since then it has been a regular part of our Lent programme and has also met occasionally at other times.

Lent 2024 “crown of thorns”. This year we shall be exploring the trials of Jesus in the week leading up to his death, and creating hangings based on our reflections. We shall be meeting in the
Refectory on Fridays 23rd February to 15th March, from 2:30pm to 4:30pm.

The Group will then spend some time working on scenery, costumes and props for the parish “Joseph” day – when we will be preparing and performing the school version of “Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat”, which takes place on 21st April.

For Lent 2023 the Group explored “Opening Doors From Grace to Glory” – reflecting on the post-communion prayer: “Father of all, we give you thanks and praise that when we were still far off you met us in your son and brought us home . . . . ”

In 2022 it met during Lent to create hangings based on the responses from all those who had taken part in parish discussions on the national course “Living in Love and Faith

The Group met “virtually” during Lent 2021, following the theme ISAIAH 60-62: “BEAUTY FOR ASHES: A JOURNEY FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT”.

For Lent 2020 our theme was “Broken but Beautiful” – our response to the BBC TV series “Broken” about a priest ministering on a run-down housing estate in a northern city.  We reflected on individuals and groups in the Gospels who found a way through their brokenness as a result of an encounter with Jesus, and we created a variety of installations in response.

Unfortunately the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown put an end to our activities after only three sessions, but we did produce two pieces, a collection of pots which each contained a crack made beautiful with gold paint- our response to Jesus’ encounter with the “woman of ill repute” in Luke 7, vv36-50: and a circle of distressed and distorted books, a representation of the inadequacy and brokenness of the Law, so vigorously promoted by the Scribes, but criticised by Jesus.

We hope that these two elements of the Making Group’s Lent activity are a sign of our “broken but beautiful” response to the Lent theme of 2020.

In 2019, one project was to make a half life-size Nativity scene for St Mary’s Kidlington.

Numbers have grown, so that we now have between twenty and thirty people involved. No particular skills are required, just an interest in using your creative skills to respond to a particular theme, and a willingness to get your hands messy! Everyone is welcome. We meet on a weekday evening in the Refectory at St Mary’s, usually between 7.30pm and 9pm.

If you would like more information, please email Rosemary via the Parish Office.

And, or course, there are all the possibilities for music, see here.