Photo: Holy Trinity Church, Geneva

What is it all about? 

Many of our chaplaincy buildings, owned or rented, are full of beauty and history, attracting visitors from near and far. Many include stunning stained-glass windows, often depicting characters and stories from the Bible.  

We invite you to share a picture or video of a stained-glass window where you meet, with some text to explain it, on your preferred social media channel. 

We hope this is an easy way for chaplaincies to show off our wonderful, diverse, buildings to the online world, whilst talking about the Bible and sharing its life-transforming message.  

If chaplaincy life is 'quieter' over the summer, you may need some fresh ideas for social media posts during July and August. You may also be looking for ways to engage with people in the community who don't go to church at the moment. In either case, taking part in #StainedGlassSummer could help you. 

How can your chaplaincy get involved? 

Everyone is welcome to take part! You could post from an individual account or a chaplaincy account. Here's what to do: 

Pick a stained-glass window in your chaplaincy building and take the best picture you can. Make sure all the details are visible – you might want to take multiple pictures to share, to include some close ups. 

Write some text about the stained glass. You could talk about one or several of these things: 

• Who the window shows and the Bible story it represents 

• A Bible verse that the window brings to life or was inspired by 

• Something to do with the history of the window and its design 

Finish off your text by saying everyone is welcome to come and see the window, you could also let people know about when you're open. 

Finally, include the hashtag #StainedGlassSummer and @Diocese in Europe. This will make your post is discoverable to everyone taking part, including the diocese and the national Church of England.  

We will be sharing and reposting your contributions from the Diocese in Europe’s Instagram, Facebook and Twitter channels throughout July and August. 

Post your picture and text on social media. Choose the platform that is used the most by your chaplaincy. This could include Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.  

You could also take a short video of yourself standing next to the stained-glass window. You could say why you love the window or talk through the bullet points above. 

Some examples 

To offer a bit of inspiration, search #stainedglasssummer on your preferred social media platform.  

We will link photos on this page as examples from the diocese as they come in!  

How your children and young people can get involved 

Why not get the children and young people in your church involved with Stained Glass Summer?  

Perhaps you could take some of the below inspiration for your Sunday school, or even for a crafts activity at your church’s summer holiday club!   

• Download some free stained glass colouring pages and print them off ready to use in Sunday School. If your chaplaincy building is open during the week, you could leave a pile of the colouring pages out for children to do – let your community know if you do this, parents might be glad to have something else to do during the summer holidays!  

• Older children (or even adults!) could have a go at drawing/painting one of the stained-glass windows in your building. 

• Kids could make their own stained-glass windows with tissue paper. 

Once you’ve got some pieces of art, go ahead and take pictures of them to post on social media using #StainedGlassSummer. If possible, you could even stick them up around your building. 
 
The below videos provide simple tutorials for creating stained glass-inspired crafts:  

Easy Craft Ideas: How to Make Stained Glass with Tissue Paper 

How to Make a Stained Glass Cross