Parish Pixels 2019-20 competition winners announced

08 October 2020

See who won our national church photography competition.

In summer 2019, we launched our amazing Parish Pixels competition, which celebrated our country’s beautiful Anglican churches through photography. We asked you to send us a single picture of your church, together with one simple line to sum up its unique character and spirit. 
 
Your response was incredible. We received more than 600 entries, from all corners of the United Kingdom, and together they formed a magnificent illustration of the astonishing diversity of our places of worship and the humbling faith and dedication of their congregations.
 
Whittling the 635 brilliant submissions down to nine regional winners was tough enough – but then our judges faced the almost impossible job of naming a winner. We invited you to help them to choose by voting for your favourite on our website, and over 7000 of you responded.

So who are the national winners?

Freedom Church photo entry - a small congregation gather outside a church which is undergoing works

Step forward Freedom Church, from Blackpool in the north west of England. The congregation doesn’t yet have its own church, but meets anywhere and everywhere for services while working hard to renovate an old church hall for use as a permanent home. 

This photograph – showing church members taking a break while working on those renovations – was taken by Rev Linda Tomkinson, whose caption read, ‘We may not have our own church building, and we may live in an area of deprivation, but we believe that it doesn’t matter where you meet to worship God, as long as you meet to worship God.’ 

Our warmest congratulations go to Linda and her fellow Freedom Church worshippers.

Here's a look at what's behind the picture

Runners up photographs - St Luke's and St Cuthbert's

In second place was St Luke’s in Kingstanding, Birmingham. This beautiful night-time fireworks shot was captured by Sarah Farnan, whose accompanying sentence reads, ‘The St Luke’s family has been sparkling like a diamond at the centre of the community of Kingstanding for over eighty years, shining out the love of God for all to see.’ 

And in third place was Rector Nicki NcNelly’s picture of frost on a window at St Cuthbert’s in Colinton, Edinburgh. ‘Like the ice appears to break the window,’ wrote Nicki, ‘we are a beautiful church in a broken world doing our best to live as Jesus commanded.’ 

Warm congratulations to them, too – and our thanks to all who entered and supported Parish Pixels, and helped to make it the fascinating and inspiring celebration that it was. 

We’re already working on ideas for an exciting new competition in 2021 – please look out for details when they’re announced!