Resources
Vital Worship
Feature Stories ... for inspiration, learning, and group discussion
 What message do you want to convey to members and visitors during your church anniversary? |
|
|
Church Anniversaries Worth Celebrating
As good as it is to reconnect with former pastors and see old church photos, there’s a lot more you can do to plan a meaningful church anniversary in your congregation or denomination.
Like any church celebrating an anniversary, Westbury Gardens United Reformed Church had lots to feel good about. They planned an enjoyable weekend to mark 25 years in their current building.
“But we wanted to make it more than a time of pure nostalgia. We wanted to make our 25th church anniversary a starting point for the future, both on an individual basis and as a church,” says Geoff Townsend, pastor of the Blackburn, England, congregation.
The way Westbury Gardens URC chose to focus its anniversary fits well with insights that other congregations and denominations are applying to their anniversaries. They are using the anniversary year or event to celebrate, reclaim identity, and learn new things as they go forward.
 |
Hard times, faithful God
Westbury Gardens timed its anniversary weekend to coincide with the United Kingdom’s annual harvest festival. Like farmers who appreciate what their crops have yielded, despite hail and disease, Westbury Gardens has overcome many obstacles.
The congregation began in 1847 as a Sunday school class that met above a blacksmith shop. In 1878 they formed Furthergate Congregational Church, about one kilometer from its current building. In 1972, Furthergate joined with Congregational and Presbyterian churches in England and Wales to form the United Reformed Church. That same year, the congregation learned they might have to move…to make room for a new motorway.
During nine years of limbo, they waited for the government compulsory purchase order, looked for a new site, and planned a new building.
“Houses around Furthergate were demolished, and the church was on an isolated island. If it were not for the faith and commitment of the minister, elders, and members of the congregation, there would have been no congregation to move to the new church,” says church secretary Kathleen Cross.
“But if we thought life would be easier on the new site, we were mistaken,” she continues. Westbury Gardens is in Lancashire, a northwest England county once known for cotton mills and textile factories. As industry declined, the church neighborhood slid to England’s bottom 10 percent for unemployment, crime, poor health, and urban decay.
Townsend says that less than a fifth of church members still live within walking distance. Most drive in from up to eight miles away. “For many, this is their ‘family’ church where they or their parents were brought up,” he explains.
 A church member and fellow flower club members created arrangements for the prayer labyrinth. Photo courtesy of Westbury Gardens URC. |
Deeper contemplation
Much as Westbury Gardens people enjoyed the anniversary worship services and photo and video displays, they agreed that the Saturday prayer labyrinth was the highlight.
The church rearranged sanctuary chairs to create a prayer walk with floral displays at each contemplation station. The walk began with an invitation to move out of darkness into God’s light and love. Along the way, prayer walkers could:
- Choose a small stone, imagine it holding their worries, and symbolically give those concerns to God by dropping the stone in a pail of water.
- Draw symbols of hurts they’d suffered or caused, and put the symbols in a waste bin, while accepting God’s power to receive and offer forgiveness.
- Study a compass as a visual reminder to focus on God.
- Plant a seed to accept God’s call to help create a more just world.
- Look in a mirror to meditate on being “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14) in God’s image.
“The labyrinth took people on a spiritual journey. Some listened to recorded commentary on headphones. Others walked with a booklet. They reflected on where they were, where they wanted to be, and how they wish to be remembered,” Townsend says.
The prayer walk ended in the sanctuary center, where people could sit, reflect on God’s freely given love, and, if they wanted, write their legacy wish on a card and hang it on branches.
“The combination of music, spoken and written word, and visual imagery was very powerful,” says elder Derek Estill, who’s taken part since Furthergate days. The labyrinth helped him savor past memories and think deeply about what matters.
Much has changed since the church’s first decade at Westbury Gardens, when members moved away and vandals damaged the building.
“Our increasing isolation became apparent during a Bible study. We realized that outreach and connecting with local neighbors is essential to being a Christian church,” Estill recalls.
 Anniversaries are a good time to remember that we worship a God who has good news for all people and all creation. © 2007 Rick Beerhorst, "Woman with Coffee Beans" | Eyekons |
Community connections
Townsend adds, “After a lot of discussion within the eldership and the whole congregation, we adopted a new mission statement. It reads: ‘As a church we seek to:
- Be responsive to God’s call
- Encourage each other to grow in Christ
- Further develop our links with other Christian churches locally to witness in the neighborhood
- Continue to be a resource on which the local community can draw and seek new ways of providing a service.’ ”
The congregation helped form a community umbrella organization with area churches, tenant groups, and sporting clubs. This partnership has brought soccer, judo, community theatre, computers, internet access, and jobs to the area.
Westbury Gardens members opened their building, hearts, and minds to outside groups. “We recognized the need to make ourselves and the building more vulnerable to risks and increased wear and tear,” Estill says.
He and Townsend joined the town’s interfaith council, which includes Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, and Sikhs. “We’ve learned to talk openly—with people of no faith or other faiths—about how faith affects our lives,” Estill says.
Throughout biblical history, the congregational offering has been a way to renew worshipers’ covenant with God. So during its anniversary weekend, Westbury Gardens renewed its commitment to serve neighbors near and far. It set up a stall to sell fair trade goods. And at both anniversary worship services, the church took offerings for Christian Aid, which helps people improve their lives and remove root causes of poverty and injustice.
Being a good neighbor also shaped the anniversaries of two churches in low income areas of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The basilica of St. Adalbert observed its 125th “rather quietly through prayer and a series of concerts,” says pastor Thomas J. De Young. The concerts let thousands of people enjoy the basilica’s restored stained glass windows and wonderful acoustics.
First Christian Reformed Church began in 1857 and has been an integral part of its current neighborhood since 1912. “People around here see the church as an important stabilizing influence and resource. An anniversary is an opportunity to freely share the celebration with the broader community,” says pastor Bill De Vries.
That’s why First CRC’s 150th will culminate with a neighborhood party and why 10 percent of anniversary funds will go to meet community needs for housing, food, or jobs.
 |
The story continues... Denominational Anniversary
Don’t miss the amusing anecdotes in bonus stories on Mennonite nonconformity and Charles Wesley hymns (including how Lester Ruth wooed his wife).
Brush up on the British love of flower arranging and church flower festivals, which have many themes. There’s even a flower arrangers prayer. Watch an online video about Christian Aid’s Fair Trade campaign.
Download Through Every Generation: 150th Anniversary Worship Resources for Christian Reformed pastors and worship planners. Reflect on Banner articles about faith formation and rethinking CRC identity during the 150th anniversary. Read Our Family Album: The Unfinished Story of the Christian Reformed Church by James Schaap.
Learn more about Mennonite peace makers at Third Way Café and A Common Place. Get ideas for Mennonite Heritage Sunday.
Check out Charles Wesley 300th Anniversary highlights, such as a choral festival, events in the U.K., and British and North American resources. Download the script for “The Charles Wesley ‘Hymnical.’ ”
Start a church history book club that helps you explore congregational stories, individual spiritual journeys, and more.
Google church and Ku Klux Klan and you’ll come across news stories of how ministers let the KKK address, donate to, or otherwise participate in worship services. This happened not just in the South but also in Indiana, New York, and Washington.
Get church history and anniversary planning resources from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church in America, Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, and Presbyterian Church (USA). Seek out scholarly resources on religious experience in the U.S. and Canada.
Browse the 113th anniversary booklet for Calvary Baptist Church, an African American congregation in Salt Lake City, Utah. Plan a Presbyterian Heritage Sunday or Methodist Property Sunday (U.K. tradition). Follow this model for an annual anniversary service.
Read Reformed Worship stories on dedication services and anniversaries at Neland Avenue Christian Reformed Church, LaSalle Street Church.
Browse related stories about comparing denominations, Trinitarian worship music, and worshiping as the people of God.
Feel free to print and distribute these stories at your council, worship, education, or anniversary committee meeting. These questions will get members talking about how to observe a church anniversary in your congregation or denomination.
- What kinds of dedications or annual or special anniversaries are coming up for your congregation? What themes would you like to focus less or more on compared to past celebrations?
- How likely is it that your anniversary will include an outreach element, whether to neighbors, an overseas partner church…or to people who have drifted away from your fellowship?
- What do you think about the idea of including confession in your anniversary observance?
- How often do you collect written, audio, or video testimonies or life stories from your members? What is your system for archiving these—so future generations can know this part of your congregation’s history?
What is the best way you’ve found to address and talk about best practices for planning church anniversaries? Please write to us so we can identify trends and share your great ideas. Whether you do these or any other things, we’d love to learn what works for you:
- Did you find a way to gather life stories from your members or former members? If so, did you create a handbook for using and sharing those testimonies during your church anniversary?
- If you checked with your regional or national denominational headquarters about their historical archives, did you come up with a checklist or plan for what to save and what to ship to those archives? If so, will you share those materials with us?
- Which book, drama resource, visual art, or conference helped you create a more meaningful church anniversary?
Text by Joan Huyser-Honig
Photography by Steve Huyser-Honig
CICW web story reprint policy:
You have permission to reprint this article (or other stories in this collection) in its entirety, in print or online. Before the title of the article, please reprint the following permission statement. If you are reprinting online, please link to the website listed.
This article was first published by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, http://www.calvin.edu/worship/stories/.