Church installs indoor ice rink for Christmas

As part of their Christmas tree festival, St Wulfram’s have put in a synthetic ice rink and a toboggan run to welcome people into the church.

Rev Stuart Cradduck told Premier about the logistics of running an ice rink alongside a church.

He said: “We can put it in, in five hours and take it out in 2 hours.

“We’re still having our main parish Eucharist on the ice rink on Sunday morning.”

Congregation members will sit on chairs on the ice surrounded by the forest of trees donated by the community.

When Premier asked Rev Cradduck why they decided to do it he replied: “You tell me why I shouldn’t!

“This building has been a place of prayer and pilgrimage for centuries and it’s seen everything – it’s seen community joy and community sadness and this is a just a new way of getting people in to use the sacred space and making it common ground.

“It’s a way of challenging people to think about what church is about, what Christianity is about.”

He added: “If it provides the way into this special place and for an individual to grow in faith, it’s got to be a good thing”.

Rev Cradduck also asked peope to pray that the church continues to be bold in how it expresses its faith.

He said: “We’re a community which is traditional but full of wanting to share God’s love in the heart of Grantham with everybody”.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Rev Stuart Cradduck:

St Wulfram’s Church in Grantham has installed an ice rink inside, surrounded by 156 trees.