Nottingham may be famous for its sheriff, its mad, bad and dangerous to know poet, and its goose fair. With Robin Hood and Lord Byron no longer in evidence and the 2020 goose fair cancelled, Nottingham’s claim to fame rests with its two universities (three if you count the College of Law), its Queen’s medical centre and its public transport system. It has a cathedral – way beyond the city boundaries – which gives unlikely city status (not officially recognised) to Southwell. Nottingham has an array of parish churches alongside churches of other denominations. Some are heavy with history; others are new-minted. The parish churches are having to compete on the level playing field that is the envisaged destination of our increasingly secular society.
Undeterred by all this history and social upheaval, Wollaton Park parish church gets its website off to a flying start. It would be hard to beat the verve and the lively close-ups of the first few seconds. It hits the ground running.
Equally ready to embrace the future, St Saviour-in-the-Meadows fosters a partnership between the parish church and the Salvation Army. It also features an Eden hospitality project.
Woodthorpe parish church reminds visitors to its website that the Christian faith is worldwide. It highlights its link with two Burundi churches – St Mark’s, Ngaagara and St Mark’s, Ganosha. Members of the congregation greet visitors to its website.
Hyson Green has been an area of massive development and is home to a variety of cultures. St Paul’s closed in 1994 after 150 years and is now converted to flats. Its congregation merged with St Stephen’s and is now demonstrating that inherited buildings need not determine the Church’s strategy.
To be fair to that Nottingham poet, his poem on the destruction of Sennacherib is a notable re-telling of the incident we find in 2 Kings 19.
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