transforming the building for a new season of growth
Finished!
Look out for The Spire newspaper coming through your door this June or
read it here now
Christ Church is pleased to announce the completion of its major refurbishment project to create a more flexible, accessible building for everyone. The £1.6m scheme took 37 weeks to complete and is now ready to be used by the church and Clifton community.
Rev Paul Langham
You will have seen the screens around Christ Church and noticed the building activity. Our doors had to shut for the best part of a year but now we open again with a new modernised venue for Clifton.
In most communities across the UK, the local church remains the biggest indoor space open to everyone.
For much of our history, before the welfare state, before the NHS, before state schools, church was the place people went when they were in need. In the middle ages, monasteries provided the first hospitals. In the 19th Century Christians were among the first to provide schools for those who couldn’t pay for education, among the first to gather workers in Trade Unions, and among the leading agencies addressing social justice and poverty.
Over recent generations, the State has stepped in as the provider of social needs, and the role
of the church has diminished. But increasingly, as austerity and the global pandemic combine to stretch national and local government resources, churches are once again stepping up to meet the need.
Here at Christ Church, even before the pandemic, we were partnering with local GP practices to provide a memory café, classes for new parents and other health and wellbeing initiatives. We also served our community through a wide variety of activities; our pre-school, toddler groups, children’s groups on Sundays, a meeting place for the elderly, youth groups, relationship support, a Breakfast Run serving homeless people in the city, parenting courses, dads’ drop-in-mornings, meals for internationals living, working and studying in Bristol - the list goes on.
We are so excited that we can now offer this modernised spacious meeting place to better serve our community and city.
Summer social
The Christ Church family is offering a warm welcome to the village with cream teas, a bouncy castle and fun activities for the children. Vicar Paul Langham said, ‘We can’t wait to welcome everyone through our doors. Shutting to the public for most of last year goes against everything we believe in but with restrictions hopefully easing we want to celebrate with our neighbours and show them what’s new.’
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Members of the church will be offering guided tours of the new facilities for those with a general interest or with a view to hiring them out. Staff at the pre-school will be on hand to answer questions about autumn term admissions.
We can’t wait to see you soon!
To find out more please email the church office - office@ccweb.org.uk
The vision to improve the church building and to open it more to the local community has moved on to Phase 2. Click the button above to see what we are aiming to do in Phase 2 and in the future.
An extensive and comprehensive consultation about the needs of the church was undertaken within the church community in 2015. This consultation is currently being updated. Click the button above to see the 2015 consultation document.
In the words of Archbishop Temple, the church is the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members. Christ Church takes that seriously and is getting to know its parish. Click the button above to see our early study.
Architects and designers have been collaborating with the church team to create a project that is both practical and elegant. Click the button above to see current progress on the scheme.