Once it had sunk in that gathering people in our beloved Church building for Christmas services was going to be a little problematic this year we decided to take Christmas to the streets… literally.
Last year we produced a Christmas card depicting the nativity scene in the heart of Hoxton Street market with angels thronging round about. It wasn’t much of a leap then to come up with the idea of a street art inspired project ‘Angels over Hoxton’. St Anne’s Hoxton has teamed up with Grace Church Hackney, a BMO that meets in the parish church to ‘Angel Bomb’ over a thousand Angels throughout Hoxton.
In an act of praying for peace, we drew an Angel over a bullet hole in a shop front next to St Anne’s where there had been a shooting just days before. We spray-chalked stencils of Angels in alleyways and troubled places. The @angelsoverhoxton Instagram account got over 500 followers in the first week and has caused a great deal of conversation in and around Hoxton Street market.
Fr Ben Vicar of St Anne’s explains:
‘A number of people have contacted us asking to get involved: schools, families and other churches. We’ve been thrilled to hear rumours of Angels appearing in Haggerston, Slone Square, Earlsfield and through the magic of Instagram connections there’s now a project called ‘Angels over Jakarta’. We look forward to using all this interest to invite people to connect with the story that speaks of God’s desire to be with us in the streets and alleyways of our neighbourhood.’
Andrew Jones, minister-in-charge of Grace Church Hackney, said:
“It’s been good for us as a BMO congregation to work in partnership with a parish congregation. We’re discovering our different strengths as two churches together and are looking forward to working alongside one another in the future.”
