Published on: 13/01/2026
It is hoped a better understanding of our intercultural congregations across the Diocese can be gained following an encouraging afternoon of discussion towards the end of 2025.
St John’s Park in Sheffield hosted an Intercultural Churches network meeting on Monday 17 November 2025, organised by our Racial Justice Team. The gathering of people from different places of worship offered space for churches to hear how others are navigating the challenges and opportunities of intercultural communities of worship and mission.
The following churches shared stories of intercultural life and worship, giving more detail of their respective contexts and the work taking place:
Heeley Parish Church
Revd Amy Hole, Vicar at Heeley Parish Church, is hopeful of encouraging someone in her congregation from Nigeria to preach. He is someone with experience of preaching in Nigeria, and so she is being intentional with her invitation.
Holy Cross Church, Gleadless Valley
Revd David Middleton gave some background context on a church graft to Holy Cross in 2011, which involved around 30 adults and children – all white. Around four months after this, Pierre Kabaya (now the International Ministry Assistant at Holy Cross) had asked to hire the hall to have a party to mark being in the UK for a year. David’s response was to invite Pierre to have a party on Sunday, which help lead to a large contingent of refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo joining the congregation, which is now at about 85% from overseas.
David flagged some of the following priorities:
- Constantly reassess where the team are at; see what the Lord is doing; see where they are missing people and where they are not gelling
- Highlighting the mission statement and five-year priorities, ensuring growth is not only vertical (in relationship with the Lord), but also horizontal (in relationship with each other – between groups and everybody)
- Continuing to learn and allowing the Lord to make the church more and more intercultural
The Holy Cross team also started up a Praise and Prayer service on Sundays in 2025, which usually includes an African song but also gives people the opportunity to stand up, speak from a microphone and sing in whatever language they want to. Prayer cards are provided to enable those who are less confident.
David said:
‘The Lord’s graciously brought us a hugely long way. It’s been unbelievably fruitful and a great learning opportunity. We’re constantly trying to build on this, allowing people to have the freedom to express themselves in whatever language and whatever way, however they want to – it’s just a joy!’
Sheffield Manor Parish
Sheffield Manor Parish hosted a Black History Month awareness service on the last Sunday in October. Instead of a talk, they had a discussion in the sermon slot, asking, ‘What are we doing well, what can we do better?’ There’s quite a lot of diversity in the congregation which isn’t necessarily reflected in the leadership/PCC, which led to the idea of finding practical points that could be followed up, rather than restricting this to Black History Month.
St Mary’s Bramall Lane
St Mary’s hosted a Celebrating Diversity day in June, where people really appreciated the time for conversations. As a congregation, one of the most impactful things was Revd Anesia Cook leading the Lord’s Prayer in Portuguese quietly, to help everybody use their own language to say the prayer. Leaders realised that saying ‘use your own language’ but then continuing in English was a barrier, so they now ask different people each time to lead.
Six people from St Mary’s went to the Taste of Heaven Festival in Coventry, which was particularly appreciated by the Iranian and Nigerian members of the congregation. The worship songs were translated from English to Farsi, but it’s hoped some more indigenous worship songs could be included in future.
Time for Bible study has been set aside at St Mary’s, with people from different backgrounds attending and looking to carry it into 2026.
St Margaret’s Brightside and St Thomas’ Wincobank
Brightside and Wincobank had a Black History Month focus in mid-October, with stories of black heroes of faith shared with each other. There are also plans to
to create more space for people to come and bring their different cultural expressions of worship and languages to services.
One of the churchwardens is from Nigeria and has been doing the Foundations course, with Revd Britt Webb (Curate-in-Charge) noting the positive steps taken in her stepping up and be more up front at church, especially as she has a heart for the churches growing more interculturally.
St James Doncaster
The Urdu congregation at St James started in 2024 with three families, followed by a small group meeting monthly in the hall. These groups were integrated into the church following a meeting with the PCC, because they were growing and the ‘main congregation’ was only small.
It is a city centre church, and there are many Farsi-speaking people who have moved to the UK. 2025 saw lots of baptisms at St James, and thanks to a Diocesan Small Sparks Grant they can plant a café-style church for people to drop in. Churchwarden Mussarat Iqbal has sat in these café church sessions alongside a Farsi-speaker to help translate.
On the fifth Sunday they have a multilingual service in Urdu, English, Farsi and Yoruba. The first service was in August 2025 and the Racial Justice Team attended and supported to a full church.
Mussarat doesn’t say racial justice but ‘social racial justice’, because ‘it’s for everybody, not only one group but everybody and so there we stand as inter-culture’. As this is her passion, she’s working with Faith in the North as a Northern Mission Enabler Intercultural Practitioner because there is a need to speak openly and widely for every group.
Fellow churchwarden Zarish Nadeem says the Urdu congregation has been received very positively, but there have been setbacks due to between 30 and 40 people being made redundant having come to the UK on a work permit. Attendance has fluctuated because of this, but there are still around 30 people attending every Sunday. St James hosted a summer camp for young people, and the mix of worship styles in each service have been well received.
The Rivers Team (Brinsworth, Catcliffe, Tinsley, Treeton and Waverley)
The St Lawrence Tinsley congregation has a lot of African people in the congregation who’ve come in from the community. The St Mary’s Catcliffe congregation are working hard to get people from different backgrounds to be part of the leadership there. To encourage others, the team get involved in Ignition Sunday and ask people to do a very short preach, which has led to two additional people joining the regular preaching rota.
An important step has been to keep in touch, as some members of the African community in church can end up on night duty at work on Sundays and may miss several services.
A crossover service was held on New Year’s Eve, which was led by African members of the congregation.
St John’s Park, Sheffield
St John’s Park have had a focus on three things; celebrating culture, releasing leaders and encouraging authentic worship:
- Celebrate culture – mostly through eating together and celebrating. The church is around 50% – 60% UKME/GMH on a Sunday.
- Raising leaders – Revd Luke Graham has tried to increase the number of preachers they have from Global Heritage Majority backgrounds. This is really aided by Wachira who has joined as a curate from Kenya. A leadership huddle also takes place to specifically invite leaders from a range of different backgrounds.
- Encouraging authentic worship – it’s in Luke’s heart to get as many different leaders at the front as possible and worshipping from the front in a way that’s leading the congregation authentically to them. He is also encouraging different kinds of prayer styles.
Centenary Project Worker Kirsty Dronfield has around 95% of Nigerian children at children’s church, and she is thinking about how she can get helpers more on board to help plan in a way that would really suit them.
The rest of the meeting involved discussion points and ways to move forward, with caution urged on not setting too many goals and targets that may not be immediately achievable for churches. There was also a call not to be complacent or to assume that things are always going well, with the importance of relationship building highlighted. The next meeting dates are Tuesday 3rd February (7pm – 9pm) in Race Equality Week and also Monday 9 February (11am – 2pm). Both will be at Church House and people will be available to book to attend online.