THE Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe begins with the 4 Pevensie children being sent away from London “due to air-raids”. Many of the kids who read it upon publication in 1950 would have had their very own memories of evacuation — including perhaps a number of the hundreds sent to East Lancashire.
Among the mill-town destinations was Colne, on the western fringe of the Pennine Hills in Lancashire, where last week the parish church was transformed into the wintry land of Narnia for Advent.
Throughout St Bartholomew are wood panels depicting Lucy, Edmund, Peter, and Susan, and their adventures in a land under the thrall of the White Witch. From the rafters, Edmund may be seen being carried off by the witch’s henchmen. Professor Kirk greets visitors on the door.
Ten months within the making, Finding Jesus in Narnia is the work of Caz Pinder, a lay graduate of the diocese of Blackburn’s M:Power training course for urban contexts. She first read C. S. Lewis’s story on the age of eight, growing up in a family that didn’t go to church.
“That’s where I first recognised Jesus,” she said on Saturday. “I saw Aslan dying on the table within the story and it absolutely broke my heart. Then after I got into the subsequent chapter, he rises, and for some reason I knew it was Jesus but I didn’t understand the importance of it.”
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The Vicar of St Bartholomew, the Revd Alex Oehring, also loved Narnia as a toddler. Together, he and Mrs Pinder secured permission from the PCC to create the project. The scenes were cut out of huge sheets of plywood by Mrs Pinder, who led a team of girls in painting them.
Since the doors opened on 22 November, greater than 1000 children have walked through, along with 1000 adults. Many had never made the connection between the story and Christianity, Mrs Pinder said. “So many individuals have said ‘I’m going to read it again; it’s brought my childhood back.’” Mrs Pinder has written a guide to the exhibition and panels explaining each the story and the allegory.
“I often discuss Narnia, and individuals are often surprised,” Mr Oehring said on Saturday. “Death, the resurrection of Aslan, that’s the hint! I believe because our country has lost that basic knowledge of the Christian faith, they wouldn’t recognise it. . .
“The more I see people coming to faith, I believe God works with our desire. I believe he alters people’s desire. . . I believe C. S. Lewis wrote this to work on our desires, and we get modified, which is why I believe that is so powerful.”
Since his arrival as Vicar in 2021, the church, which dates back greater than 900 years, has grown from a congregation of 58 to greater than 200, including the recent addition of a small Assemblies of God congregation, following the ordination within the Church of England of their pastor, who now serves as curate.
Forty-eight people have been confirmed and there are actually three youth groups led by Louise Smith, a neighborhood employee. Quite a lot of home groups are actually running and about 20 people have done the M:Power course. Breakfast and lunch clubs throughout the week have enabled the employment of an Authorised Lay Minister to run a community grocery. The parish is among the many six-per-cent most deprived within the country, in accordance with the Church Urban Fund.
Mr Oehring, who served as a captain within the royal engineers for eleven years before ordination, attributes the expansion to the ability of prayer: every single day he joins two “wonderful” laywomen, Nan and Pat, to hope for growth.
Mrs Pinder describes a young girl’s response upon stepping through the doors — “Wow, Daddy, it’s Mr Tumnus!” — as making the ten months of labor all worthwhile.
Her work as a lay evangelist stands in a family tradition: her great-aunt Elsie was a uniformed Salvation Army officer who used to walk across the pubs of Burnley rattling a tin, selling the War Cry, and singing hymns. “I don’t think people on this world today understand how loved they’re and who they’re loved by,” Mrs Pinder said on Saturday.
Her next project is a Christmas service later this month telling a “very modern” Nativity by which the Angel Gabriel appears on the highest of Burnley Town Hall.
Finding Jesus in Narnia will run until 5 December.
