INFORMATION FOR CHURCHES

If the walls of your church could speak what stories would they tell?

Church buildings are often among the oldest buildings in a community. They are a repository for community history as well as the place where people have worshipped for centuries. They have many stories to tell.

Go West was set up to harness the history and the heritage of church buildings in the Worcestershire countryside and use it in ways that benefit the local community. As you explore this web site and our sister site heritage detectives.org you will see examples of the way Go West volunteers have deepened their own understanding of the part churches have played in the history of their community and set about sharing their discoveries with others. They are developing a Churches Gazetteer for visitors to use when they visit Worcestershire and the borderlands of England and Wales.

Our aim is to help people, especially children to:

engage with the physicality of the past,
consider its place in our lives today and
reflect on its significance for the future.

We do this through the use of story. Story offers us:

A way of promoting curiosity and imagination - this helps us to remember.
An opportunity to build bridges - this enable us to link to the past; (to our roots) and to the future.
Stories use a special language, a language that can stimulate imagination and wonder.
Stories can provide an escape from the commonplace.
Stories can bind us to all of human kind – to the human family. We recognise that every visitor comes with an unique story of their own but there are links and common things between us all.
Story can unite us all to the common stuff of our existence – to the rhythms of nature; to the stuff of nature and our need for food: for body, mind and spirit.

Churches that get involved with Go West are asked to:

Learn their story. Research it if this has not already happened.
Own their story. Go West asks PCCs and congregations to participate in making ready to share the story of the local church and parish with visitors.
Contemplate their story. To think about their story in relation to what is happening now, in the community and further afield
Pray their story. Anyone familiar with the story of the Church in England will be aware that the story has not always been a comfortable one. Our local story may also have had its ups and downs, there may well be a need for healing. Take your story to God and listen.
Share their story. e.g. With visitors and with children.
Celebrate their story

Church visitors

There are many reasons why people of all ages like to visit church buildings and we hope that our Churches Gazetteer will offer information that will enable tourists and visitors make discoveries that will be significant to them whatever their interest.

If you would like your church included in the Churches Gazetteer please contact us and we will send you the necessary paperwork.

In 2005 Go West was awarded £50K from the National Heritage Lottery Fund to run a 'Stories from the Stones' pilot. A major outcome of this pilot was the installation of blue Listening Posts in six churches up the valley of the River Teme between Worcester and Tenbury Wells. Cotheridge church was one of the six churches engaged in the project. Each local community was tasked to uncover and outline its story. The HLF money paid for a professional script writer and voice overs so that visitors could be introduced to the story of the church and its community in sound.

Heritage Detectives visit churches

Young heritage detectives with their teacher's families and friends visit parish churches as part of their heritage quests, they may visit your church. We hope that you will welcome them and help them as they look around your church for evidence that Arthur might recognise in your church building. Arthur is a 13th century time travelling knight looking for things he might still recognise.

The detectives will be looking at walls, windows, fonts, memorials, effigies and gravestones as well as searching for signs and symbols. When they find something that interests them they will call it a wonder point and start to ask questions about it. Their simplest question will be how old is this? Will you be ready to answer?

When they have the answers they will use the information to make a wonder card ready to attach to their Parish Timeline. All the information they discover will be collected and put into a new digital Parish Chest for use by the parish and their school in the future.

Do you have a time line for your church?

Coming shortly on this web site,

The Heritage Knights will be taking you step by step through the process of creating a church timeline. The material you discover will be of special interest to anyone who visits a church building as part of the Churches Festival which takes place each year in September.