Christ Church Moreton Hall

By the time you read this we will have celebrated “Back to church Sunday” and will have also given thanks to God for the Harvest festival. Once again Christ Church will be full as people find how to draw close to Jesus and find true friendship with their fellow Christians. What you probably don't know is the great news about the film of the Bury St Edmunds Passion Play, which we put on the internet earlier this year.

The film which shows an open air re-enactment of Jesus Christ’s Last Supper, trail, and execution, on the streets of Bury St Edmunds, has won a national award. We took part in a competition which included such well known names as St Paul’s Cathedral, Tear fund and the national Methodist Church. Our the six minute production has won the 2009 Best use of New Media for a Christian campaign at the Original Christian Web and New Media Awards.

I have to say it came as a great surprise and will be a huge encouragement to both the town and the churches of Bury St. Edmunds. A full list of winners and runners up can be accessed at Christian Blog Awards The passion play has been running on Good Friday since 2006. This year it attracted over 2000 people to the Suffolk town and featured a cast of 75 actors and crew. The award winner film has been viewed over 2,000 on the YouTube website

The picture shows the production team, of Tim Sheppard (Director) and Revd Simon Ladd (Film Editor) and me the Producer as we received our “Christian Bloggie” at an awards ceremony held in London recently. In addition to the trophy and certificate, the film won a data projector which can be used by all churches in Bury St Edmunds for events. There were over three hundred entries this year in 13 different categories.

The next Passion play, run by ‘Churches Together for Bury St Edmunds,’ will be staged at Easter 2011.

Yours sincerely,

Jonathan Ford