Trinity Methodist Newport

Showing God’s Love

Over the last couple of years we have been working on redeveloping the worship area.

The first stage meant our old pews have been removed and replaced with new chairs, carpet has been laid and the curtains replaced. We have added an extra screen and projector to the front of the church and removed the blinds covering the windows in the cupola.

We first removed the communion rail and dais leaving us a flat floor to the rear platform, then on one Friday night a small team of church members arrived at the church armed with all types of tools and implements to remove the rear platform. A lot of rubble was discovered beneath the platform which was removed that evening leaving us with a completely flat floor in the worship area which we hope to use to create a more flexible worship area.

On the 9th August 2010 the Trinity demolition team met again, this time the pews were dismantled and were temporarily replaced with chairs that were currently being used within our lower hall and side rooms. All the wood and metal that made up the pews were collected by a salvager to be recycled.

After the evening service of the 15th August, the church was emptied to make way for the work to be done during the following week. The following week was an exciting time for Trinity, on the Tuesday we had the carpet delivered and fitted, instantly the worship are looked so different and clean looking. Unfortunately the chairs which were expected during this week were delayed by a week. The new curtains to replace the old original ones were delivered and installed as planned on the Friday.

The following Sunday many positive comments were heard from the congregation but the one question that kept being asked was "where are the chairs?"

Well the following Wednesday they were delivered, obviously on the wettest day of the week. In the pouring rain a few valiant people helped to unload sixty four large boxes containing chairs and communion rails which were stacked in the hall ready for unboxing that evening.

The amount of boxes did cause some consternation within the group that arrived to help unbox but they set to with enthusiasm and soon had the boxes unpacked and collapsed and were now ready to lay the chairs out in the worship area. It may come as no surprise that many discussions took place about where to put the chairs but with the help of electronic measuring instruments we finally got to work and laid the chairs out. The final result left all the people there with large smiles on their faces at the look of the worship area. This was the end of stage 1.

Stage 2 has seen more work done, we have added an extra projector and screen to the front of the worship area. The blinds covering the windows of the cupola have been removed and the windows tinted to block some of the sunlight that has been known to shine in the eyes of the preacher. As part of the project the whole of the worship area has been rewired.

A photo gallery showing some of photographs taken during the redevelopment can be found here.