Wollaston Free Church News Page

Terminally ill children in Moldova enjoy Christmas

Before Christmas, the young people at church raised £500 for terminally ill children in Moldova so that these children might enjoy Christmas. The young people had heard about the sad circumstances of the children when a pastor from Moldova, with whom the church has links, visited the church earlier in the year. The young people achieved this by working on varoius projects to raise the money.

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Local Charity benefits from donation of £750

Monies donated by church members in lieu of sending each other christmas cards together with the offerings at the late night Christmas Eve Service and the Christmas morning service totalled £750. This sum is being sent to the Acorns Children's Hospice in Worcester. For more information about the Acorns Trust, click on the image below to go to their website.

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Let the People Sing!

Wollaston Free church now has its own custom selected hymn book.

Hymn singing has always been a significant part of the worship at Wollaston Free Church since the church opened in 1967. Congregations through the years have always enjoyed the hymns we sing in particular the ones written by the great Hymn Writers over the last four hundred years.

The church has used Hymns of Faith as its main hymnbook since its opening and we’ve always been extremely satisfied with it, but by 2009 the hymnbook was out of print and a replacement was needed. Those hymns we appreciated from Hymns of Faith could not all be found in any one of the hymn books in circulation; also by this time some of the most popular hymns in the church were those which had become known as the Sankey Hymns, those introduced by D. L. Moody in the 19th century.

Many people attending church in that century could not read and so these hymns were set to lively tunes with repetitive choruses which people would remember and carry on singing them in their homes. We, today, derive just as much pleasure in singing these hymns as our forefathers did.

Other favourites are those written by church members in the sixties to some of the pop tunes of that time. The tunes in the charts in that era lent themselves to this being done, but sadly in later years this was not so. The congregation in the sixties appreciated singing the new words to these then familiar pieces and through the years they have remained very popular. Also some of the well known hymns written in recent years have been introduced to the congregation and these too have become favourites.

Rev Peter Williams, the minister at Wollaston Free Church since its opening and one of the founder members, thought that the only way forward was to have our own hymn book published and gave me the task of preparing one for publication; thus the new Wollaston Free Church hymn book has come into existence, and we hope it will be used at Wollaston for many years.

This was not an easy task but very enjoyable and rewarding. In making the selection I have read through many hundreds of hymns, probably taking far deeper notice of the words than I have ever done before. As an organist and pianist I am very conscious of how important music is in church life and that we need good tunes, especially those which the congregation enjoy singing. But it is far more important that the words we sing reflect the greatness of God and the power of redemption through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Vivienne Haynes
2009
Church Treasurer

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July 2009

During this last school year children from St James’s Church of England Primary School which is in our neighbourhood, visited our church.  They were all children from Year 2 being mostly 6 year olds.  As part of their R.E. studies they had also visited St James’s church in the village and had to compare the two churches noting any differences.  They saw a demonstration of a baby’s dedication - using a doll, and an enactment of a believer’s baptism with one of our church members being re-baptised!

Below are just two of the very many (around 50) "thank you" letters received from the children after their visit.