Towards a multilingual church

Dr Claire Moll Namas, one of our chaplaincy team, reflects on the development of worship in other languages at St Katharine Cree...

St. Katharine Cree has begun celebrating a Spanish language mass occurring on the first Saturday of each month. From 12noon to 1pm the church echoes with the joyous sounds of the song "Pescador de Hombre". However, this initiative was not led by the clergy or staff. In the winter people from across our life at the church, from our ESOL students, to members of the union, to participants in our women's leadership course, all who had first arrived to the building of St. Katharine Cree ostensibly to benefit from our more secular programming, began to ask if we celebrated mass in Spanish on a Sunday. We explained that we didn't, but if mass is something that they might be interested in, we could explore options. Taking a lead from the community, we began a listening campaign focused on exploring the spiritual needs of those coming into the building for any sort of activity. Overwhelmingly the feedback was that people wanted a Bible Study and a mass in their first language.

The Bible Study took place over lent after our morning ESOL class and had a very dedicated group of women. They discussed forgiveness--what the Bible has to say about it, how God and Jesus exemplify it, and how we might implement that sort of forgiveness in our everyday lives.

As for the mass, it quickly garnered 20-30 regular participants. People from across Latin America, all migrant workers in London, gather to receive communion or an anointing of the sick. Many of the congregants are returning to the communal practice of their faith for the first time in years. We know that shift work, often managing multiple jobs, plus the cotidian struggles of family life mean that many low-wage workers have to forgo weekly gatherings like this. Keeping unsociable hours often means a forced separation from partaking in the sacred meal of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. But now, at least once a month, those coming for ESOL or the union meetings can once again access this intimate communal moment.

One woman remarked after the first Spanish language mass, "I finally knew the words to the mass again!" There is very much a spirit of returning to faith happening at St. Katharine Cree in this moment of time. It is a joy for the team to be accompanying so many in this re-encounter. We all have a language of our hearts, and it is in that language that we long to connect with God.

At St. Katharine Cree, we are looking towards the future, and as we partner with more people who have first languages other than Spanish, we hope to build up worshiping communities in those languages as well. Stay tuned for the mass in Albanian or the Ukrainian language Bible Study! As we continue to work to build the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth, we expect our building to become filled with many types of songs of praise--all united in the mission to worship God, welcome our neighbours, and challenge injustice as the Guild Church for Workers.

'Distance Between': singing and Solidarity in the Wrenathon

Musical Director of Sing Tower Hamlets and freelance vocal leader, Leanne Sedin, writes...

Working with St Katharine Cree on the Wrenathon was really special for us. In addition to Sing Tower Hamlets performing being hosted by St Katharine Cree on the day of the Vocal Marathon itself, we also had the opportunity to work with some of the church's established community as part of the wider Wrenathon programme. Through a series of workshops, singers from Sing Tower Hamlets joined together with the majority-Spanish-speaking community of the church, to learn some songs together, talk about the songs we loved and carry with us, discuss we identified with different lyrics, and ultimately write an original piece of music together, to be performed at the Vocal Marathon.

A theme that kept coming up in the discussions was around being split between two places - many of this community originating from Central and South America, having moved to the UK to work - as well as the different things in our lives that keep us going. It was clear these things needed to be expressed in song - and lyrics were developed from these discussions. It was incredibly special for Sing Tower Hamlets to perform the resulting song, entitled "Distance Between", at St Katharine Cree at the Vocal Marathon on 24th June, with one of the workshop participants joining in to sing, and many more in the audience, hearing their own words reflected back.

Another joyful thing to come out of this collaboration was Sing Tower Hamlets learning to sing in Spanish for the first time! We were guided on pronunciation by members of the St Katharine Cree community as we learnt the song "Ya Basta!" (meaning "enough!"), which includes the words of Spanish poet Antonio Machado: "caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar". This translates to "walker, there is no path - the path is made by walking" - and this was certainly our experience journeying through this new and exciting collaboration together.

I'm so grateful for the warmth and generosity with which we were welcomed in by the community of this church, and hosted by Priest-in-Charge Josh Harris and chaplaincy team members Ivonne Loján and Claire Moll Namas. It was a really special collaboration and we hope to build on it in the future!

On a personal note, it was delightful following our performance to then go and see various diverse choirs performing in other Square Mile churches - several of which I stepped foot in for the first time. I'd love to see this kind of event happen again in the future!

Revd Josh Harris writes...

We were so delighted to welcome Leanne Sedin to St Katharine Cree for these singing and story sharing workshops, and the fantastic performance by Sing Tower Hamlets of a new song written out of those workshops. As the Guild Church for Workers in the City, we are building community and relationships of trust and solidarity among workers here - including the many who have travelled from around the world to contribute to the prosperity and vibrancy of the City of London. As followers of the creator God, we know that music, art, singing, and sharing the stories which make sense of our lives is such an important way in which we can do this.

We are grateful to support from the Diocese of London, Wren 300, and the superb producer of this event, Holly Hunter.

Learning English in the City

Chaplaincy team member Danny Palmer writes...

The Guild Church of St Katharine Cree has been offering classes in English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) since September 2022. What was initially a small group with a single volunteer has now grown into a whole day of classes. Anywhere between four and six volunteers per session and over fifty students per day come to learn. The ESOL classes continue to build the Church’s presence in the City of London and to develop beyond all hopes and expectations what being a Church for workers means.

During the early periods of the ESOL project at St Katharine, students mostly came from the cleaners and facilities branch of IWGB, a small Spanish-English language trade union branch focused on unionising precarious workers. When we had asked workers what they wanted from the Church, they asked for English classes on Saturdays. These students were migrants, principally from Latin America, engaged in low-wage jobs where precarity and harsh working conditions determine the vast majority of their time. And even when people are not at work, we’ve found through countless conversations that these communities are subject to persistent marginalisation in their everyday lives. They are often unaware of the unfairly complicated processes of employment contracts, registering for a GP, housing claims and more. An inability to speak English confidently only worsened their situations. It was with these concerns in mind that St Katharine began offering its classes, aiming to teach English to help members of these groups and communities better control their lives and not be dependent on, and vulnerable to, the help of others.

Over the course of this year the initial group who met on Saturday mornings has grown in numbers and developed in form. Many who have joined the morning class have come to St Katharine either through friends or by hearing about us through word of mouth. We do not need to advertise. Many migrant workers now come to St Katharine, knowing that here we are building a Church whose heart lies with those most exploited and marginalised. Our 'offer' now includes an afternoon session, run parallel to an intermediate-level “Conversation for Action” group, as well as our beginner class on Saturday mornings. New members of the ESOL classes come from ever more diverse contexts, from refugees from Kosovo and Ukraine to Albanian workers residing in London.

The increase in students has also led to an increased need for volunteers. Our fantastic lead volunteer teacher Alison is now joined by friends and partners helping every Saturday during term. The languages our volunteers speak now include Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Ukrainian, Albanian, French and Italian. This allows us to welcome far more workers and migrants than we could have ever hoped. If you'd like to volunteer with us please get in touch.

We love to help migrant workers in London learn English. But we are not a language school. We are a Church, and our mission for workers here in the City means building a community that is shaped by the Good News of the Gospel. At the heart of this is joyful celebration: of music and culture, often with partners and other organisations and involving food, and of Christian feasts and festivals which matter to the migrant communities in our classes. It has become a profound source of joy to see how many of the ESOL students want to be part of a community, the many other people they bring in, and the interest with which they actively engage in the Church’s life. We have hugely enjoyed moments of songs being learned in Spanish by English-speaking volunteers while Latin American-led choir groups perform in English, and precious occasions where the most timid non-native speaker summons up the confidence to say they want to converse in English alone. As one of those involved with our ESOL classes, I am deeply moved at how this Church, at the heart of London’s financial district, has given life to the fellowship of many flags, a legion of languages, and an unnumbered but resonant voice.

We began with the hope of offering something we knew from our listening process that many needed. We have now become a community that was initially brought together by need, but it continues to grow in the confidence that nothing should be a boundary to fellowship. Our ESOL classes have been instrumental to this. With an eye to the coming Autumn term, and with a trail of truly celebratory and touching moments, our hope has become a reality, which not only underscores this Church’s mission to workers but shows both its necessity and beauty.