Nottingham Songs of Praise

MUSIC: "Bolero" by Maurice Ravel

Well, this is my first time presenting Songs Of Praise

and I'm already skating on thin ice.

I'm here in Nottingham, home of Britain's most famous

ice dancing duo, Torvill and Dean and I'm keen to impress...

..and so in honour of them, my dance partner and I

shall demonstrate the Bolero.

This week, youth with a mission,

the church that's getting a makeover,

the group bringing light into the darkness,

plus contemporary worship songs

and special guest, Lara Martin.

I might not have presented Songs Of Praise before,

but I'm certainly no stranger to the programme.

You might have seen me helping to choose the winners

of the fabulous school choirs competition.

Well, there's no judging to do today

but we've got lots of great music from St Nic's Church

in the city centre and, as you can see, they've got the builders in.

And let's find out how it all looks later.

Our music recording was one of the last events

to be held at the old church before it was handed over

to the developers.

And we began with a popular worship song

led by Steve Thompson and his band.

Nottingham's a great city, full of surprises.

Football's one of my biggest passions

and Nottingham's home to not one, but two football clubs -

Nottingham Forest and the world's oldest professional football club,

Notts County.

I've always wanted to do this.

And this is a great shirt but it's not mine.

This is mine.

Now, where's that ball?

Sherwood Forest on the outskirts of the city is the legendary hideout

of our most famous outlaw, Robin Hood.

Which way to the castle, mate?

Oh, that way.

Nottingham Castle has stood firm in the city centre

through centuries of battles and conflicts.

And the castle walls still hold many secrets

of Nottingham's turbulent past,

including this maze of caves used as secret passages into the castle

for supplies and even people.

Today, the castle museum charts the history of the city.

Including its thriving trade in religious sculptures

carved from alabaster,

which were highly sought after in the Middle Ages.

And these sculptures are more than just works of art.

In an age when most people couldn't read or write,

they told the Christian story.

For the past six months, the congregation at St Nic's Church

have been worshipping elsewhere

so the building can move with the times.

The landscape of the city's changed throughout the years

and so the role of the church has changed too.

If you go back to the Georgian era,

this church was known as the "drawing room church"

where all the wealthy people came.

But then, of course, it became a slum area and then the slums

were demolished and now it's a commercial area,

and a place where people come to shop.

Congregation member, Martin Paradise,

has played a key role in the development.

We're taking the old, slightly tired church and rebuilding it,

re-ordering it, they call it in the Church Of England.

Both ends of the building, interior and exterior,

bringing it up to the 21st century.

The big thing at that end of the building is a new balcony.

A very thin, floating balcony that's going to curve right across

the west end of the church.

This end, we're sitting in it. This is the new baptistery.

We didn't have a baptistery before,

we had a portable thing that we put together and took apart,

so this one is much more shallow and it does take a seven foot person

because we tried it with the builders and laid them down.

So, basically, it's a shallow pool for baptising people.

As well as providing better facilities for its congregation,

the hope is the new church will draw more people in.

It's a way that you can dovetail into modern society

and I think you've got have something that is attractive to people who've never been to church.

There are people who never went to church or Sunday school.

They have no idea who Jesus was.

You've only got to look at the number of people who sit out on the grass

having their sandwiches.

We're hoping to be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so, hopefully,

the people will wander in, have a cup of coffee,

just somewhere on this side of the city that's a nice place to go.

This is virtually funded by the members of the congregation

to hundreds of thousands of pounds so that's fantastic so quite rightly,

they have an interest in the way it's hopefully going to turn out.

Although it's not finished yet, some members of the congregation

have been taking a first look at the building.

The key impression is light, openness, space

and it's going to be a really flexible space

where you can use it for all sorts.

It will lift our spirits quite a lot.

That's the phrase that came to my mind as well.

I think people are excited at the openness of it.

I mean, we could see it on the plans beforehand, obviously,

and you get an idea in your head about what it's going to look like

but things change between plan and build,

particularly with the balcony and such like,

it's been really good.

You know, you could have asked what modern cities are for.

Is it just a playground? Or is it just a place to come and work?

Or a place to go and buy loads of stuff?

Or does it have a spiritual heart?

So it's to be a place of prayer, a place of community,

a place of mission and outreach and it's hoping to be a place

of equipping Christian disciples to live today.

We're going to just be gardening this morning, OK?

'When you tell someone you're Christian,

'they have this vision of you sitting in your high tower,'

or in your church kind of going,

"Look at the world, isn't it a bad place?

"We're safe in our church."

But that's not what Christianity is about.

That's not what my faith is about or what these people's faith is about.

Richard Dawson is passionate about getting young people

out of their churches and into the community.

We aim to take a group of young people from churches

and local schools that maybe don't have a faith

and we take them across the country.

They don't know where they're going. It's a mystery.

We head to another Youth for Christ centre,

working with the local church to bless a community.

But today's group are closer to home, in Nottingham,

where they're gardening for people unable to do it for themselves.

We want to show that young people aren't just

mischievous and horrible.

We want to show them that we care, we're not just about ourselves,

that we care about other people as well.

When I was chopping the hedges, I really enjoyed it.

When I went on to chopping the little trees,

I really enjoyed it as well.

You're, like, helping the community and people who can't,

like, help themselves.

One of the things we're really passionate about is saying,

"Hey, how as a Christian are we making a difference

"in this world and bringing God's kingdom into a real community?"

Being a Christian means trying to be Christ-like.

Jesus loved the people he was around,

Jesus made the biggest impact on society that history has ever seen.

So surely, as his followers, we should do the same.

Without Richard and Youth for Christ,

I probably wouldn't be out here doing this.

Nottingham's a big city. We can only do the little bit that we are.

I think one of the things I'm really passionate about is just letting

every young person in the city

know their potential and know of their worth.

That would be awesome.

I think I could sit back in my rocking chair with a flat cap

if that happened and just go, "I've done it."

In the Bible, Jesus tells the story of a man on a journey

to Jericho who is ambushed and left battered,

bloodied and injured by the roadside.

People passed by, ignoring him,

until one man has compassion on him and stops to help him.

'The story of the good Samaritan has inspired a group

'here in Nottingham to try to help prostitutes to get off the streets.'

We are a project that really seeks to demonstrate the love of Jesus

to women working in the sex industry in Nottingham.

Our desire is really to be showing love to them

and we would like to see them moving forward,

not being on the street, but in a really positive way.

We go out two or three times a week

and drive around the main red light area

and just stop when we see someone,

offer them something to eat and drink

and allow them to get into our van

and maybe just have a kind of safe space amidst the night.

'One woman, who we'll call Ruth, was helped off the streets

'with the support of Jericho Road and has now become a Christian.'

Just met them on the street one day.

I was, I don't know where I was going.

Probably to score drugs or something like that.

They were an outreach project. They just stopped and chatted to me.

How did you feel when they approached?

Very scared. Wondered what they were up to, what they were about,

what they wanted me for.

-Did it bother you that they were Christians?

-Yeah, it did.

Yeah, it did, really.

I've never known any religion or anything like that.

It was just a load of God squad people to me, Bible bashers.

I didn't know nothing about it.

-I was just very naive and very ignorant.

-How did they help you?

In every way you could think possible, really.

They helped me with finding new accommodation

when I came out of prison, they've helped me spiritually.

Erm, everything, really.

It really challenges your faith and it inspires it.

Yeah, it really kind of grows it and I think

it's because of a faith in a God that gives life in abundance

and a God that can really do amazing things and change and restore lives.

That's why we do what we do, that's what the project is about.

-What's your life like now?

-Erm, a million times better.

Erm, when I was in Nottingham it was just all about me.

What I wanted what I could get for myself.

Now I work with churches, I volunteer to work with homeless people.

Now I look at life as what I can do for other people.

Now I've become a Christian,

it's only a year and a half ago but, yeah, it's a lot, lot different now.

# God sees you

# He knows where you are

# You are not forgotten, no

# God knows you

# He chose you

# He's spoken of in heaven

# Only God

# Only God can see

# Inside every human heart

# Only God

# Really knows you

# And God made you

# He loves you as you are

# You are not just a face in a crowd

# God hears you

# He's near you

# And he's closer than you think

# Only God

# Only God can see

# Inside every human heart

# Only God

# Really knows you

# You, you, you, you, you

# And only God

# Truly understands

# The issues of the heart

# Only God

# Only God

# You are God's masterpiece

# When will you realise that it's true?

# There is a God who cares

# A God who loves

# A God who sees

# God hears you

# He's near you

# And he's closer than you think. #

Lord, we praise you for what you've given us

and for what you've promised us.

Give us the courage to come out from all our churches into the world.

That our lives may proclaim your glory

and your whole creation may reveal your love.

We give ourselves to you

and ask that our daily work may be part of the life of your kingdom

and that our love may be your love

reaching out into the life of the world.

Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.

I've come to the end of my visit to Nottingham

and I've really enjoyed it.

It's great to see a city that's thriving in both body and spirit.

We're going back to the old St Nic's for our final song,

which I'm sure the congregation are going to sing again with gusto

when the building work is complete. Happy Day!

Next week is Bible Sunday and Aled will be marking

the 400th anniversary of the King James version

with a visit to Oxford.

Congregations from all over Britain

and the King Singers will be celebrating how the good book

continues to inspire today.

Time is running out for entries

to our prestigious School Choir of the Year.

It'll be the 10th year of the competition

as it goes from strength to strength.

If you think your school choir's got what it takes

then go to our website, where you'll find all the information you need.

Schools need to send in their entries by October 28th,

so you need to be quick to avoid missing the boat.

Let's see if your school could be crowned champions.

There's nothing quite like it -

the Songs of Praise School Choir of the Year competition.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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