Big Mission Weekend with the Archbishop of Canterbury

What’s happening across the Diocese? Over the May Bank Holiday, Friday 24 to Sunday 26 May, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Justin Welby, will be coming to the Diocese of Gloucester to join in with our mission and vision.

View/print the programme
Read the schedule for the weekend
Thy Kingdom Come 2024

Archbishop Justin answers a few questions ahead of the visit:

Friday 24 May, 5pm

Archbishop Justin will be joining Evening Prayer at St John Baptist Church in Cirencester. It’s a quiet and reflective service which happens every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Saturday 25 May, 2pm to 4pm (change of venue)

The Archbishop will be involved in a community fun day run by Sportily, full of lots of sports and activities, at Innsworth Community Junior School (Rookery Road, Innsworth, Gloucester GL3 1AX) with a giant rounders match, basketball, a climbing wall and a football cage. Come along for a coffee and an ice cream and practise your map-reading skills in our treasure hunt. Please note that this is a change to the venue originally advertised.

Sunday 26 May, 3pm

The weekend ends with a celebration diocesan Eucharist (Holy Communion) service at Gloucester Cathedral at 3pm. We will thank God for all of the projects Archbishop Justin has seen and the people he has met and look forward to the next season of mission and evangelism in the Diocese of Gloucester.

There will be a multi-sensory play area for children and people of all ages are invited to join in with this joyful service of celebration and thankfulness.

We are also encouraging people to bring a picnic to have either before or after the service in the grounds of the Cathedral.

If you’re coming to the Cathedral service, it will help hugely if you could let us know.

Please click here to complete this form and give us an indication of numbers.

Thy Kingdom Come 2024

Thy Kingdom Come aims to:

Encourage people to pray, all around the globe
Ask people to pray, daily, for five of their friends to come to know Jesus Christ.

National website
TKC on Facebook
@ThyKingdom_Come on Twitter

Join a great wave of prayer.
9 – 19 May 2024. With 100K free resources now available for worshipping communities, Thy Kingdom Come is bigger than ever.

Download free resources from the TKC website

Bulk order form for printed resources

CPO – order on the website

Visit the TKC website for the latest

Some of our favourite resources this year are the Novena – a booklet with 9 days of Bible reading, reflection and prayer and the Prayer Journal, with artwork, videos and spaces to write about each of the 5 people you choose to pray for during this season.

If you have TikTok, or know people who do, you might want to follow @thewaytv who are equipping young people to pray through their popular channel.

TKC is considered one of the most effective interventions contributing to the growth of mid-sized churches, according to independent research and continues to grow in depth and breadth across the globe- uniting Christians, across more than 85 different denominations and traditions, in nearly 90% of countries worldwide.

As ever, to help us join in prayer during 9-19 May, TKC has a fantastic range of resources for all ages –for children, young people and for adults including:

For Children, 5 brand new episodes of the Jesus Story Book Bible, with the Cheeky Pandas, brought to life by stunning animation and read by influential Christians including CBeebies Gemma Hunt, Bear Grylls, Archbishop Justin Welby and Mary Berry;
For Young People, TKC has teamed up with the Way UK to produce a series of short films exploring different styles of prayer from different traditions & denominations with accompanying discussion plans for use in youth groups at church, at college or at home;
For Adults, brand new print resources (Novena and Prayer Journal; available to bulk order for free, using the links above), prayer stations with stunning artwork as well as 11 daily videos featuring voices from across different denominations and traditions.