The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee
The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee will be celebrated from Saturday 2nd to Tuesday 5th June over a special four day Bank Holiday weekend. This is a wonderful opportunities for churches to get involved in their communities, and show what welcoming and friendly places churches are. It’s a chance to welcome more people to come to your church and grow your church’s influence in your community. The Church of England is encouraging all its 13,000 to get involved, and has produced resources and liturgy at www.diamondjubilee.churchofengland.org.
The Big Thank you is a chance for churches to invite people to sign a letter thanking the Queen for her years of service - there's more information on this here.
On Sunday 3rd June communities all over the UK will be holding The Big Jubilee Lunch. The Big Lunch, organised by the Eden Project and HOPE, provides a chance for churches to host a lunch for their communities. You could hold the lunch in the church hall or have a big picnic outside - whatever works for you! You could even hold your Sunday morning service a little later than usual, and go straight to your Big Lunch afterwards - it’s a chance to invite people to pray for the Queen on her Diamond Jubilee. If you think that’s a way your church could engage with your community, visit The Big Lunch website at www.thebiglunch.com.
A Souvenir Diamond Jubilee edition of the New Testament has been created to give out at schools, churches and street parties. This attractive NT is available at just £25 for 50 (50p a copy), plus postage, and includes 8 pages of photographs from the Coronation and the Queen’s life, plus Bible references to help readers understand the Good News of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection and its relevance today. You can order your New Testaments here.
If you are planning any events for the Jubilee, you can highlight them on a new Church of England website, www.jubileenearyou.com. Building on the success of a similar website the Church of England ran at Christmas, you can add details of celebration events to the existing website www.achurchnearyou.org, and suitably tagged entries are automatically migrated to the jubilee site.
As well as the Big Lunch, Christian organisation HOPE has lots of free resources for the Jubilee at www.hopetogether.org.uk, including:
- A Diamond Jubilee video to show how churches can take the lead at the heart of their communities to stage a Big Jubilee Lunch
- Diamond Jubilee sketches, assembly plans and ideas to use in schools and children’s clubs
- ideas for celebrations with senior citizens in residential care homes
- royal quizzes and community-building activities so everyone can join the party and have a lasting memory of the day
- details of a special Diamond Jubilee souvenir booklet from HOPE and CPO to give away
For Parish magazine editors, Parish Pump (www.parishpump.co.uk) is offering a series of articles written by David Winter, former head of Religion for the BBC, marking the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. The first is entitled "Elizabeth - Child of Destiny".
If you want to use the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee as a chance to engage with your community, please contact Roy Thompson of the Diocesan Church Tourism Group on 01347 878644 or roythompson2@btinternet.com. He can offer help and support, and is co-ordinating our Diocesan activities on the Jubilee.
And whatever you're doing, please tell everyone about it! If you are holding an event for the Jubilee, it’s a chance to share this with wider communities via the media, and show people our churches are vibrant and exciting places. Contact Eleanor Course, the Diocesan Communications Officer on comms@yorkdiocese.org or 01904 699530 for help with the media or publicity.