Our first Celebration Day in 2024 was a huge success - the challenge to us this year was quite simply "how do we follow that?" as well as making it something different. Well, follow it we did – and this year was just as fantastic!

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The day took place on Saturday 21 June 2025 from 2pm to 7pm at Tipton Green Methodist Church. The day featured plenty of workshops, activities, and discussions… but more importantly, brought our churches together to celebrate all the fantastic work our churches are doing. Well over 100 people attended over the course of the day.

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Our theme was 'What Three Words?', with each church (and each of us) asked to show what three words from the Methodist Way of Life stations best show where we are now and – more importantly – where we see ourselves in the future.

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The church displays were brilliant, there was plenty to see, do and take part in – and lots of opportunity to share in fellowship with one another, renew old friendships and to make new ones. The day concluded with our Circuit worshipping together and then sharing in a buffet tea.

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Have a look below for more about the day, what we shared in together, and photos taken on the day.

We’re taking a year off next year – but we already have something just as good, just as exciting, lined up to replace it. More news on this to follow… but we will come together as a Circuit in celebration in 2026!

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Methodist Way of Life Display

​​​We respond to God's love in Christ through the way we live our lives. In the Methodist Church, there are 12 practices that we think particularly help us to encounter God. We call this A Methodist Way of Life. Each practice is a station on the journey where we meet God and grow in faith.

The theme of the Celebration Day was ‘What Three Words?’, where churches were asked to display what three of these 12 stations best suit where they are now and where they would like to be in the future. The display allowed us to ask the same question of ourselves – where are we now on our faith journey and, more importantly, where we see ourselves journeying in the future. The 12 stations are: notice, worship, pray, serve, flourish, challenge, tell, live, share, open, learn, and care.

Where are you now? Where will you be in the future?

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Eco Church/Circuit Display

It's important to the life our churches, our Circuit and our world that we consider what we can do to be more eco-friendly and environmentally friendly in all we do. We are more often than not, eco-friendly at home (recycling, turning down our energy use, being more conscious of our environment, etc), but this often doesn’t extend into our Church life.

 

Our Eco Church/Circuit display highlighted ways in which we can be more focused on the wonderful world God has entrusted to us, our place in creation and how we can all do more to make a sustainable difference to our planet.​

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CLT Display and Circuit Steward Drop In

​​The day-to-day running and management of our Circuit is the responsibility of the Circuit Leadership Team (CLT). The CLT is made up our Ministers and a team of lay people, bringing their skills to bear to move our Circuit forward, allow our churches and our congregations to flourish, and to better serve our communities. We want to see our churches grow – both in number and in faith. This display showed who our CLT are and sought to show more of the work we do.

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Members of the CLT were at the Celebration Day to answer any questions or concerns. To see more about our CLT please see the Our Team page.

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Pixar/AI Quiz

​How well do you know your CLT was the challenge for everyone when they came into the foyer area of Tipton Green Church.  Not very well it seems!

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Pixar images of each of our CLT had been created and put alongside "Three Words" that AI produced to describe each of our CLT members and Staff based on the photos from our Circuit Website. Descriptions included the words Cheerful, Friendly, Thoughtful, Warm, Calm and Dignified, Kind, Sophisticated. Someone was even "possibly intellectual"! I wonder who that could be? All taken in good humour and creating a good talking point as you entered the building.

 

Congratulations to Sue from Methodist Centre who had the most correct answers.

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Singing the Faith Workshop

​There always seems to be new gems to find in our "new" hymn-book, and whilst some people are not afraid to introduce new hymns into worship, not everyone is confident at doing so. At a recent Local Preachers meeting, we invited preachers to suggest unknown, or less familiar, hymns that are in Singing the Faith that we could learn.

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A variety of hymns were chosen including the very simple and reflective number 624, to a very lively rendition of number 42 which was used to end our time of worship together at the end of the day. O Sing to the Lord, O Sing God a new song!

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Craft Workshop

It was a busy crafting area, where it was fantastic to meet so many lovely, creative people eager to try new techniques and develop their own ideas. We offered three different activities: Sarah led a session on air-dry clay hangings, exploring pattern, texture, and relief; Sue provided inspiring examples of mixed media panels, along with materials to create bookmarks and small gifts using card, hessian, and Scrabble letters (perfect for people to take away and make their own); Judi developed cross-stitch kits that allowed participants to create a personal craft item either at home or as part of a church craft group.

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All the crafts were inspired by one of the Methodist Way of Life stations, their church’s ‘What Three Words’, or a personally meaningful word chosen for reflection.

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We were busy all day having opportunities for great conversations with friends old and new.

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Prayer Workshop

Over the course of the Celebration Day, prayers were gathered from those who attended. Some were for each other, some for our Circuit, District, community and the wider world – but all were important! Our prayers were gathered together and included in our Worship that concluded the day.

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Family Activities

We welcomed children, younger people, and adults of all ages to come and join in family activities centred around 'Nurturing God's Planet' as our eco theme. Activities ranged from using recycled junk modelling to Gelli printing to making an Eco Church display. Making bird cup feeders was by far the most popular activity - reusing old charity shop tea cups, we all got messy mixing lard and sunflower seeds, filling the cups ready hang on a tree with ribbon.

 

Sharing our activities was such a blessing, giving important time and a safe space for the young and old alike to engage in conversation about what it means to look after the world God has made. Numerous pastoral conversations were had and participants were encouraged to make a butterfly to write a prayer on and decorate, which were shared in our collective worship.

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Methodist Liaison Office in Jerusalem Q&A

​​Revd David Harman is a Methodist Minister who lives in Jerusalem and works at the Methodist Liaison Office (MLO) there. He was originally due to join the session via live link from Jerusalem, but as he flew back home to the UK earlier in the week, was able join us in person. David answered questions about day-to-day life in Israel, Palestine and Gaza, what it was like to practice his ministry in the middle of a war zone, and what the MLO does in partnership with other churches to help to bring peace in the region.

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The Methodist Church is a justice-seeking Church. We don’t take sides in the on-going conflict, instead standing on the side of justice. We call out and challenge injustice in all its forms, challenging the Israeli government, the Palestinian authorities, Hamas or any neighbouring country where we feel they can do more to show justice, compassion and love. David was asked what we can do in the Black Country – thousands of miles as we are from the conflict in the Middle East. His answer was simple: never underestimate the power of prayer! We are encouraged to remember those who are suffering in the region and the work of the MLO in our prayers… and to seek justice in our lives.

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Take a look at this webpage to find out more about the work of the MLO. See this webpage on the Connexional website signposts the latest information as well as resources for prayer and reflection on the situation in Israel-Palestine. For those who would like to donate to the Methodist Church's Gaza/Lebanon Justice Appeal, they can do so on this webpage.

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Justice Conversation

We are a justice-seeking Church... and we fight against injustice in all its forms! Miriam, Revd Juliet’s daughter, who works with Jesuit Refugees as Destitution Services Manager, led us in a session that looked at what this looks like in reality. How do we see the plight of refugees, both on television and in the life of our Circuit, and do something positive that impacts their lives? This session provided a safe space for open discussion and a chance for ideas we can all act on to become a reality in the life of our Circuit.

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Local Arrangements Workshop

​The first objective of this workshop was to dispel some of the myths of LAs; they are not second-best when a preacher isn't planned to preach, or less significance to any other worship. LAs can be an opportunity to do something different, and involve people in the congregation, rather than being led by one person from the pulpit. The challenge is how people across our circuit can become EXCITED about LAs?

 

We discussed ideas of different things we might include in each element of our worship "menu", from starter, main course, dessert and ending with Coffee, Cheese & Biscuits!

We used 1 Corinthians 13:13 as a basis for sharing ideas; from opening with a secular piece of music ('All you need is love' by The Beatles), to members of the congregation sharing news of their week with one another and giving thanks for all that has happened, or pausing to reflect on areas of concern. Dramatised bible readings, or splitting readings to read a verse or two each, interviews with discussions on worship themes often continuing into coffee-time after worship. 

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We were encouraged that our churches involve members of their congregations when planning LAs, and move chairs around in the worship area to create a more relaxed worship space; doing things differently!

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Bible Conversation

Not a Bible study! That’s how this session was designed to be – and what an uplifting time it was! We shared insights, discussion, and testimony… and everything in between. We looked at what the Bible means to us, what it says about justice, and how it impacts on our daily lives… living, breathing, words of scripture.

 

We also looked at whether it can be read with different perspectives, remembering to think about it's original context and what it means to disagree well.

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We all walked away with new ideas and new insights. It was truly an inspiring time!

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Worship

​Revd Rachel Parkinson preached during our time of worship that pulled together all of the sessions, our time celebrating together and what the Methodist Way of Life stations means to us as a Circuit, as Churches and as Christians. The service featured brief presentations from each of the sessions over the course of day, so that everyone could all of the great work that had taken place. The prayers of intercession had been written during the Prayer Workshop and by people over the course of the day and the hymns, practiced during the Singing the Faith Workshop, raised the roof!

 

It was a truly inspiring time that brought our Circuit together in worship… followed by fellowship over a huge buffet tea!

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Photos of the day

​Take a look at our photos of the day. Use the arrows to scroll through or click/tap to see them full-size.​​​

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