St Mary REdcliffe Parish Magazine Dec 2019 Jan 2020

Steve again described what God would be like if he were just loving
by using the example of a teacher who was very kind, very accepting,
didn’t mind if pupils scored 0% in every test, thinking the best of
everyone all the time, forgiving them when they did things wrong and
having very few rules. We wondered if this would mean that no-one
really made an effort to achieve anything. Fortunately for Christians,
they believe that God is both Holy and Loving.
who asked Harry Stammers to design and install the wonderful windows
in the Lady Chapel instead of replacing the war-damaged windows with
plain glass. From the rebuilding of the church spire in the 19th Century, to
more recent times when the church commissioned Robert Coles to design
and build the wonderful and hugely symbolic boat-shaped altar in St John’s
Chapel instead of buying a cheap table to use as an altar! All these generations
of people have felt that God was worthy to be worshipped through
the beauty and grandeur of the architecture, the design of the building its
windows and the objects within it.
In groups, the children did a tour of parts of the church looking at how
the architecture, the structure and shape of the church building and
the artefacts inside demonstrate the holiness and also the loving nature
of God. The very shape of the church (cruciform) reminds us of the
love of God in Jesus and the gothic architecture with its tall arches and
the gold-covered bosses point to the glory of God.
We looked at how, over the centuries, people have felt that the church
was important enough to spend a lot of money on making it very beautiful
and grand in order to glorify God. From William Canynges in the 15th
Century, who paid for a hundred craftsmen to work inside St Mary Redcliffe
to help make it the grand building it is today, to the post-war congregation
18 19
In addition, in groups, the children
thought about the stories in the windows
and the colours used to show God’s
loving nature and his holiness. They
designed their own windows, writing
underneath a few words describing
what a holy nature or a loving nature
means to them.
The workshops ended with a short talk by Bryan Anderson about music
and worship in the church. Bryan talked about and then played two pieces
of music on the organ: the first conveying the loving nature of God and the
second demonstrating the grandeur and holiness of God. As ever, the
children were very enthusiastic to watch the organ being played.
The workshops took on a challenging question but the children responded
to it with enthusiasm, curiosity and wonderful participation — see below
for our volunteer Steve’s account of the morning!
Sarah Yates, Education Officer
tel: 0117-2310072 / email: sarah.yates@stmaryredcliffe.co.uk
“If God is perfectly Holy, who gets to Heaven?” Steve asked the St Mary
Redcliffe Year Six class who came to the workshop organised by our Education
Officer, Sarah Yates...
“No-one”, said one pupil.
“Correct. Well done. If God is perfectly loving who gets to Heaven?”
“Everyone”, came the reply from another.
“So, what problem has God got?”
SMR Education cont/...