The Bishop of Stepney recently opened the St Paul’s history project at St Paul’s Church, at a short Friday lunchtime ceremony. The project has collected a mixture of photo, newspaper, text archive and personal memories focussing on the local community and the church’s role with in it.
All this material is accessible from a touch screen mounted in an exhibition cabinet that can be moved around the church.
Local resident Bet Lewis, Tom Maher from Old Ford Housing, and Tony Basra from the Geezers explore the touchscreen.
Curate Rev. James Hughesdon introduced the project.
He spoke of the transformative role of the St Paul’s Church in the community both past and present, and how appropriate it was for the project to open on the 10th anniversary of the physical transformation of St Paul’s into both a place of worship and a community hub.
He then intoduced Louise from the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture at the University of York who was instrumental in developing the project with the Church.
The introductions ended with the gift of flowers for the workers on the project.
The Bishop then dedicated the the exhibition with a short prayer.
You can see all of the opening ceremony in the video at the bottom of the post.
Whilst he was there the Geezers took the opportunity of interviewing the Bishop about the role of the modern church in communities like Bow.
St Paul’s is very active in the community. 10 years ago it converted its building to host a number of community facilities alongside its space for worship.
The Church sees itself as both a place of worship and a community hub. To find out more about the church and its activities click here for their website. The history project was supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Here is the video recorded at the opening event.