Community Links

We believe our faith has to impact everything we do, in our life and community. A faith without evidence of the love of Christ is potentially an empty faith.

So where possible we try to work with the community to help wherever we can.

Many church members are actively involved in voluntary work in the community, at the health centre, hospital, and schools etc.

St Helen’s has close links with St John’s Primary School (C of E Voluntary Aided) www.st-johns.notts.sch.uk in Stapleford.

The school was built in 1837 by Lady Caroline Warren of Stapleford Hall in memory of her husband Sir John Borlase Warren who had died in 1822. It was after Sir John that the school was named. Since then, the links between school and church have remained close, and to this day our ministers still visit the school each week. The church often welcomes St John’s children in to church for services and for the ‘Time Travelling’ experience. St Helen’s is consistently represented on the board of governors and the vicar is currently the Chairman of governors.

Throughout the year, all the other primary schools in Stapleford bring hundreds of children to visit the church, either to take part in the ‘Time Travelling’ activities or to come for a special service to celebrate festivals or end of term. Representatives from the church go into the schools to help with assemblies; we are also supporting the Christian Union at George Spencer Comprehensive School and developing an additional after school club.

St Helen’s is pleased to be supporting the ‘Extended Schools’ government initiative.

The church has recently made links with Castle College, and together we are exploring how we could serve students and staff with chaplaincy support.

The church is involved in supporting the newly opened cyber café for young people at Montrose Court, and is always looking for additional new ways to engage with the community.

St Helen’s is part of the Stapleford Forum of Churches, who form a public witness of Christian faith in the community at public events like Remembrance Sunday, the Easter ‘walk with the cross’, and ‘Party in the Park’ and also joining together for prayer and ecumenical worship events.

As the parish church St Helen’s has responsibility for holding the annual civic service, when the work of the town council is committed to God. Our vicar is a regular contributor at civic events such as leading prayers at the start of council meetings and the mayor making ceremony. We believe that politics and religion can and should mix!

The links with the council also benefited us in practical ways too, a couple of years ago when we received a grant from them to repair the roof in the Memorial Chapel on the side of the church which had started to leak.