WOOLASTON Methodist Church celebrated its 150th  anniversary with a flower festival and a special service.

 

Providing the music for the service was 97-year-old Miss Edna Hicks – as she has done for 71 years when she first moved to the village. 

The first Methodists in Woolaston registered a house on Ring Fence as their meeting place, but the growing confidence of the congregation led to the chapel being opened in 1867.

 

Three current members have direct links to the early days of the chapel – Miss Hicks is the granddaughter of Colston Hicks, one of the preachers, and Caroline Prosser is his great granddaughter and Ashley Lane is the great-great grandson of George Howell who was a Sunday School superintendent. 

Miss Hicks said that when she first started playing there was a pipe organ – and a bucket toilet in the shed. The church is currently spending £20,000 on facilities such as disabled access and baby changing facilities. 

The service was conducted by Gloucestershire’s Methodist Superintendent Rev Dr James Tebbutt who said the way in which Methodism came to the village echoed the experience of his own great-great-great grandfather in Northamptonshire. 

He said: “We had a service of special hymns chosen by the congregation, some readings and I preached a sermon which told of my  family back to my great-great-great grandfather and how he had a sense of the Holy Spirit of God’s love for everyone that got him to license his house in Northamptonshire as a meeting place for Methodists and then built a chapel. 

“It’s a parallel story of the way that, 150 years ago, people here got a sense of wanting to meet together and using a house to do and then built a chapel. 

“We talked about the Holy Spirit and that  nobody knows where it is coming from or going to. Nobody could have known 150 years ago and when people got the sense of God’s love that it would still be in the chapel today.” 

“This wonderful celebration of flowers and worship for the 150th  anniversary is an opportunity also to celebrate the quiet but persistent commitment of the church’s leadership and congregation, as week by week, year by year, they faithfully seek to love God and serve their neighbours, for which we give the profoundest thanks.” 

After the service the congregation enjoyed the cake which was made by Avril Czajkowski and featured a model and picture of the chapel and butterflies which symbolised the Holy Spirit. 

The flower festival featured 18 displays inspired by the theme of patron saints.