The Church of the Ascension, Bitterne Park

The Church of the Ascension, Bitterne Park. 

The Church of the Ascension,
Thorold Road, Bitterne Park,
Southampton.

 
Sun 16th 9:30 a.m. Parish Communion - Easter Sunday

 
From the Church website:
9.30 Parish Communion

On the first Sunday of each month, an all age service replaces the 9.30 Parish Communion, all other Sundays there is a Sunday Club and a Creche for younger members of our congregation
On the fourth Sunday the Parish Communion includes the Ministry of Healing with Laying on of Hands.


The Review

The intrepid duo were late again, though this time it was due to a friend tagging along with us and being hard to rouse in time for a 9:30am service. We entered through the main doors, walking past a beautiful mosaic in the entrance hall. Once inside the main church, we were bemused to see the entire congregation processing through the church toward the back of the building. A server (who we were later introduced to as Sam) and another member of the congregation beckoned us in with welcoming smiles. It turns out the church were going to bless their new bells before the service started, which the vicar, Rev. Sarah Chapman, duly did.  We all then walked through the main part of the church 
and took seats in the sanctuary which was marked by a painted carved stone screen.

A short note here on the decor of the church. Another victorian barn, with white walls and beautiful modern stained glass windows. The one in the bell tower shows the 'Grace Dieu' a ship sailed by a crew of Christians, and over the main altar,
 a variation on a rose window. This had images in the colour of the rainbow radiating out from
 a central image of a majestic Christ. It was lovely to gaze upon this during such a joyous service. 
The other windows illustrate hymns by Isaac Watts, a Southampton native. The arches in the 
aisles and the decoration over the main and lady chapel altars were painted much like the screen in 
lovely deep shades of blue red and green with gold detailing.  Even the organ had painted pipes!

We followed the standard liturgy for Easter Day of the CofE, with the 'F' Eucharistic prayer. There were plenty of Easter Alleuias and lots of congregation participation. There were no pew bibles, and the hymns were from Sing Glory and Junior Praise books. Two of the hymns were accompanied by the organ, and the rest by piano and drums, lead by a singer on a microphone, and sometimes joined by some sort of brass or wind instrument, either a sax or a trumpet. The reason I can't tell you is that the worship group was situated on the dais the other side of the screen behind where we were sat. I merely glimpsed an instrument case as we left for coffee! The hymns for Easter Sunday were 408 Jesus Christ is Risen Today, Alleluia, 112 Glory, Glory in the Highest, 420 All Heavens Declare, the Glory of the Risen Lord, 398 Alleluia Alleluia, hearts to heaven and voices raise, and He has Risen, When the Life flowed from his body.

The sermon was given by the curate, Rev. Paul Bradbury. He seemed a bit nervous to begin with, but soon relaxed into speaking making a few jokes. We were really impressed with his style of preaching which was very personal and well referenced with real world and theological anecdotes from the Archbishop of Canterbury and other modern theologians. He also had a very pleasant voice to listen to. The sermon was 15 - 20mins long I think, but I was so interested in it I didn't write down the actual time. The main gist was a that the bodily ressurection of Christ has siginificance for us in that we can use it right now today. It's "Steak on the plate while we wait, rather than just pie in the sky when we die" We should work to honour Jesus with the knowledge that what we do here on earth is not in vain. The curate is apparently doing one thing a week to try and fight injustices in the world.

The prayers were lead by the Thompson family, with the parents also being involved in the worship group. Both the parents and the children read really well and emphatically.  The worship group also played during the communion, including one of our favourite worship songs, 'Once Again'. We were especially pleased to see the welcome of the Junior Church after the communion where the vicar welcomed them up the front to tell us all what they had been upto whilst we had the service. They did this enthuiastically and it seemed like this was a regular thing as even on of the tinies was ok with speaking in the microphone to give the vicar an easter egg! There was a well appointed children's area in the main church. During the last song, all the congregation were given tambourines and percussion instruments if they wanted one and encouraged to make a joyful noise which we did followed by some spontaneous applause and whooping! We also sang 'Thine Be the Glory' to appease one of the servers according to the Vicar, otherwise she'd have a mutiny on her hands next week!

After the service we retired to Church House to have tea and coffee in the hall there whilst the children took part in an easter egg hunt. The tea and coffee was fairly traded and very good, and the biscuits very high quality, though not very festival appropriate being Christmas tree shaped! The aforementioned Sam came and talked to us about the church and life in Southampton and filled us in on some of the plans the church has for the future, including screening off the sanctuary and  taking the pews out of the main body of the church to make a community hall, levelling off the stairways in the entrance to make to make it more accessible, and having a cafe onsite. 
We could have talked for hours but eventually had to leave to go to Easter lunches!

Traditional/Modern: A real mix of both traditional and modern styles of worship incorporating traditional liturgy, modern prayers, hymns on the organ, worship songs and tambourines. Worked surprisingly well.
Formal/Informal: Middling. Servers and priests in albs etc, but more informal preaching and leading styles.
Solemn/Lively: Fairly lively which was great for Easter Sunday.

Great: The mix of worship styles, the on target and interesting preaching,
the welcome given the to junior church when they joined the main service.

Not so great: 9:30am... when?

Access: Wheelchair access via the side door, but main entrance has stairs into church.

This review was written by the Older one.