Olveston & Tockington

The Church was formed through the merger of Olveston Methodist Church and Tockington Methodist Church in 2004. The two villages, within the Parish of Olveston, are a mile apart.

The Church has retained both sets of premises. The Olveston buildings consist of a Chapel opened in 1820 (the oldest Methodist building in the Bristol North Circuit) and a linked Hall (1937), with a well-equipped kitchen and good cloakroom facilities. In Tockington there is a Chapel which fronts on to the village green and fifty yards away are the Wesley Rooms, purchased as two cottages in the 1950s and altered in due course to cater for Junior Church and social activities.

The Church has 18 members and a community roll of approximately 40. Currently junior church numbers are variable, but in the order of 10 on roll. Sunday morning services are held in Tockington (except for the second Sunday of the month when Olveston is used to enable participation by the Breakfast Club for children, run by St. Mary's Parish Church). Evening worship is at Olveston and once a month takes place in the village's Sheltered Housing community lounge.

Anglicans and Methodists were the founder members of the local Churches Together Group, which also includes an Anglican Chapelry and two independent evangelical churches. There is an Anglican/ Methodist village support group and a joint pastoral group. OTMC's regular activities include a weekly prayer group and a Saturday coffee morning in Olveston; monthly 'light lunches' in Tockington are much appreciated by the (largely) older members of the community who attend and the Church also organises a monthly luncheon club.

Olveston Parish has a strong sense of community and many members of the church play an active role in this wider context. Olveston Methodist Hall and the Wesley Rooms in Tockington are heavily used by local organisations and the rental income generated makes an important contribution to OTMC's budget, as does our annual Harvest Fayre on Tockington Green, which provides a focus for substantial support from the community. The Church takes seriously its commitment to outward giving.

One of the first decisions of the new combined Church Council in 2004 was to develop a property strategy. The outcome was a decision to renovate and upgrade Tockington Chapel, to assist innovation in worship, meet disability requirements and facilitate increased community use, this work has now taken place.

Our Minister is supported by a Lay Worker. Our Mission Statement in its concise form reads: 'We seek to worship God, make disciples for Jesus Christ and to reflect his teaching in the community'. The benefits of uniting the former Olveston and Tockington societies are already apparent; the Church has a ten year target for increasing active Christian commitment and membership from the support within the community.