St John the Baptist and Sacred Heart churches in Tamworth are thriving with activity as two significant initiatives are now underway.

Mission Week and the recent launch of a community café are not only bringing the community together, but also keeping them very busy!

To help with Mission Week, which started at the weekend, six members of the Sion Mission Team are spending nine days in the parish community.

The aim of Mission Week is to try and restore the faith community after the pandemic, and after years of building work to focus on people and faith.

There are three strands to the event – prayer, fellowship and teaching – supported by a packed programme of events, both social and spiritual.

The programme includes morning and evening Masses; one-off events including a Healing Mass; children and family events; Mission home visits; a Prayer Walk and a Mission Activity Day. 

Mission Week programme

The other development in the parish is the recent opening of a community café.

HoT (Heart of Tamworth) Community Café is a community project with all profits supporting the HoT community charity and is located at Sacred Heart Church.

Visit the cafe Facebook page

Fr Michael White, parish priest, said the new initiatives were helping to address parish priorities around social outreach and evangelisation, two of the themes in the Diocesan Vision: Unfolding God’s Plan.

"Covid has been a real battle for us, constantly trying to stay connected and respond to need," he said. "We hope our café and Mission will combine to be a real week of celebration and renewal. We need both!

"The work on the Mission has mostly been done by our lay team – led by Alex Parker and supported by a team of volunteers. They have been amazing.

"Different parish teams have worked in different areas - social events for the mission, prayer resources, booklets and prayer cards, youth activity day, liturgy and opening the café each day. We’d be lost without them."

Visit the parish website

The Diocesan Vision: Unfolding God's Plan