Hundreds of people joined an outdoor service in Southampton’s Guildhall Square on Good Friday to mark the holy day together. The event followed the success of last year’s event which was the first public collective church service in Southampton since the Covid pandemic.
The service brought together worshippers from churches from across the city along with members of the public who stopped to watch and listen.
It was led by Bishop Rhiannon along with senior church leaders of all denominations.
Bishop Rhiannon said, “Today is a wonderful opportunity for the churches to be out in the heart of Southampton. The Easter story is the best story ever told, so to be able to do tell that here is wonderful and I hope people will be encouraged by what they hear. I hope people who haven’t heard the message before might come away full of hope, perhaps thinking ‘I might do something about this, I might try praying or I might contact some of these people again.’ It’s wonderful to have all sorts of churches working together on things like this, so let’s do even more.”
Bishop Rhiannon opened the service by sharing the meaning of Easter and the message of forgiveness, hope and love. She prayed for the city of Southampton, its streets, schools, ports, parks, people and churches.
Paul Woodman from City Life Church organised the outdoor service and said, “We wanted to come together with different churches across the city. We all have different traditions and ways of meeting, but it’s nice to remember that we have this one common belief that Jesus died and rose again. It’s a common hope and faith that we have, and so to celebrate that together is really important to us.”
The service included music from the Covenant Church, a drama, and talk by Steve Lee who delivered his words from an open door on the upper deck of the Miracle Street bus. The bus is part of a county wide outreach to support young people and vulnerable groups. Others shared their testimonies.
In the crowd were Keith and Sue from Highfield Church, who commented, “I think it’s important that believers make their presence known on the street and it’s great that we are able to do this. We think people are hungry for the word of God especially young people and it’s important that we are here to be the public face of the church.”
Nigel and Kate from St James Road Methodists added, “We came last year and it’s a great event. It reminds people what Easter is all about and I think it’s a witness in the city. We’re not just hidden, we’re celebrating publicly.”
Southampton Street Pastors were on hand to talk to people in the crowd. Mike Bunce who attends St John’s Church in Rownhams said, “We’re here for people to be able to chat to us. People sometimes feel more open to having conversations with Street Pastors about their beliefs. Often the church door can be a barrier to people engaging with faith, but this is the churches on the street and getting the message out there.”
Paul Woodman concluded, “I think there’s a lot of difficulty in the world, a lot of things that don’t give us hope, but the Christian message of Easter is a beautiful story of hope, celebrated all over the world by people of different cultures, and hopefully the people of Southampton can find some hope in that story today.”
