Midge Hall Methodist Church
S m a l l C h u r c h - B i g W e l c o m e
Do we ‘Care for the creation’?
The award is judged on 5 areas:-
1) Worship
2) Buildings
3) Land
4) Community & Global Engagement
5) Lifestyle
1) Worship
We are a very rural Church and have at least two services a year celebrating nature and harvest and we regularly have a selection of good Methodist hymns that are suited to our rural farming community.
On special occasions like our recent Remembrance Day, our children, which are now called ‘Midge Adventurers’, made large poppies to decorate the Church and hall.
Other special services include topics such as ‘World Mission’, ‘Fair Trade’, ‘Ukraine’ and we have four weeks of the year at Advent, when we have a ‘Noisy Collection’ where the money collected goes to sponsor a young girl from Indonesia, through the charity, Compassion. The Adventurers enjoy collecting the congregations loose change into tins and pans and making lots of noise - all for a good cause.
2) Buildings
Due to our growth over the last 20 years we have seen major building works taking place which included, a new kitchen, toilet block with disabled toilet, new store room and new attic storage room, and in 2012 we built a new Vestry, Entrance Hall, Meet and Greet Area and Meeting Room.
All the windows in the property are now all UPVC , fully double glazed units.
We have been gradually changing the Halogen lights which are now all LED’s and all the lights in the church are low energy bulbs. When funds allow, the fluorescent tubes in the hall which would need new fittings will be replaced with LED strip lights.
We have two boilers which are ‘A’ rated combi boilers, which are serviced every year, one boiler for Kitchen, Hall, Store and Toilets, the second for the Church, vestry, gallery and entrance hall.
The reason for two boilers is that when the hall is used by Church and outside groups on a daily basis, we do not need to heat the Church part of the building.
All the internal doors are fire rated and sealed which also keeps heat in the building when the outside doors are open.
We are currently investigating costs from local suppliers for Solar Panels that we could put on the south facing roof of the toilet block to help with our electricity energy costs. We have already had a survey done which would allow at least ten panels to be fitted.
3) Land
The Church has a field, and towards the end of Covid, we decided to create a ‘ Peace Garden’ that would be a quiet place to meditate and find some peace. This is open to all the local communities to use (see photos). We have three new benches, bird boxes, bird feeding table and a butterfly info stand next to our buddleia plant.
We planted 20 meters of hedging and obtained Shrubs from The Woodland Trust and trees from our local council. We have also just planted a Cherry Tree in memory of our late Queen Elizabeth II.
We have planted fruit trees and have an area dedicated to wildflowers to encourage wild life.
We have two water rain collection tubs, two compost bins and we have recycling bins for garden waste, plastic/glass and paper/cardboard.
The Adventurers have also created a Bug Hotel and planted seeds and trees
4) Community & Global
Our Church buildings (Hall) are used on a daily basis for community groups such as, Table Tennis, a Local Choir, Two Dance Groups, St Johns Ambulance, Two Yoga groups, Slimming World, 2 Quilters and Patchwork groups, Bible Study and Prayer Groups. There are also occasional children’s Parties (mainly on Saturdays) and other hires for community groups
We have recently held a ‘Makers Market’ with stalls selling locally grown produce, crafts, pottery, glass fusion, Eco products, quilting, homemade jams, breads and local cheeses and with craft activities for children and was well attended by the local community with money raised going to International Aid
We have Links with a local community gardening group where our gardening group meet up and exchange flowers and ideas.
We are a child friendly church that encourages children to come and join our ‘Midge Adventurers Group’ that meet every Sunday Morning with activities outside exploring nature activities.
Our Church is a ‘Fairtrade Church’ using Fairtrade Tea, Coffee, Sugar in our kitchen, with a dedicated corner of shelves in our Hall selling Fair Trade products.
We have a collection point to support our local Food Bank where food stuffs are taken every two weeks.
5) Lifestyle
We encourage Car Sharing, cycling to church and walking, but this may be restrictive due to the demographic of our congregation
There is a church walking group that has up to 20 members who walk for a 4 to 5 mile walk every month, run by one of our church members.
We hold an ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) evening once a week where two of our congregation members teach local refugees basic English, with two more members looking after their children and provide transport for collection and return to their hotel accommodation.
We support world vision and last December initiated a communal Christmas card. We have notice boards with Eco notices to encourage our church and wider community to value our environment and climate.
We produce a weekly news letter that is mainly e mailed out to the congregation (to save on printed copies), with a quarterly magazine being produced for the church and wider community, with contributions and articles from local churches and businesses.
