Parish profiles

St James Clifton

Last Updated on Thursday, 01 December 2011 15:31

Rev. Abi Thompson has been Priest-in-Charge of St. James, Clifton for over a year now and is encouraged by the way she has settled in and made connections in the community.

With her lifelong love of music, Abi has drawn others into singing and, alongside other members of St. James, has managed to get both a youth choir and a community choir off the ground, both of which have 20-25 people involved from around the community.  Both these choirs have started to sing at major church events.

One stand-out event from the last year at St. James has been a performance of ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat’ involving local children.  A small team of students from Jesus College in Oxford came to Clifton for a week-long project involving over 30 children, both from the youth choir and some with no church connections.

The ‘Joseph’ event drew in support from around the parish including from the local theatre and secondary school.  Abi comments that ‘the performance totally filled the church’ and ‘had a huge impact on the local community here’.   Many people who came for the performance have returned for other special events at St. James such as their harvest supper and the wider parish’s ownership of the church has grown.

St. James is keen to continue these links with Jesus College and hope to put on other similar events in the future.