Community Engagement Story 1: St Luke’s in Oxford

This film tells the story of St Luke’s Oxford. It presents the process of developing a new building on the footprint of the church that stood there before and discusses the group’s approach to engagement.

We invite you to reflect on the story and pick one of the following questions to discuss in the comments section below.

• The original plans for the new building included the idea of adding some flats in order to generate income to support the maintenance of the church and its activities in the long term. This was met with disagreement from local residents. Do you think that local residents who don’t use a church should have a say in what happens in it?
• In St Luke’s the project started when a group of young people decided to pursue ‘the big project’ and to raise money to create a place for themselves within the church (which was called the ‘Chill out room’). What do you think is needed for young people to be able to become community leaders?