Holy Week and Easter

The month begins with the most important week in our Christian calendar, Holy Week, leading up to Easter.

From Monday (2nd) to Wednesday (4th), we’ll be holding three Meditations for Holy Week at 7.00pm. They will use readings from John’s gospel (chapter 12) based on the themes of “Dying”, “Darkness” and “Doubt”.

The meditations will be followed on Maundy Thursday (5th) by a Communion and Agape Meal at 7.30pm.

We hope all this will help us to enter into the mystery of Christ’s suffering for us as we prepare for Good Friday and then the joyful day of Easter at the end of the week.

Please do join us for as many of these as you can. Easter without Holy Week is only half the experience.

Annual Parochial Church Meeting

This year’s APCM will be held on Sunday 22nd April at around 11.15am (after a shortened service).

We will be looking back over the past year and forward to the year ahead, appointing people to the PCC and other roles, and celebrating what God is doing among us. TECHNOLOGY will be one of the main items under consideration: how we need to embrace changes in technology in order to make church as interesting, helpful and attractive as possible.

Do come and support this important gathering.

Service Pattern

We have been considering how best to arrange our evening services, notably for Choral Evensong. The PCC decided recently to change the monthly Evensong to the second Sunday (swapping with the Celtic Communion). Choral Evensong is a beautiful service but needs a robust, balanced choir to work most effectively. It hasn’t been supported too strongly of late and perhaps moving it to the same Sunday as the All-Age Service in the morning will enable a stronger choir turn-out at 6.30pm. We’ll be trying this new arrangement for a 6-month period from May and reassessing it towards the end of the year.

Memorial Service

Our next twice-yearly Memorial Service will fall on Sunday 29th April at the usual time of 6.30pm. Do encourage those who have recently (or, indeed, not so recently) been bereaved to come along. It’s almost invariably a comfort for those struggling with the pain of losing a loved one and something which people find helpful and strengthening. As usual, there will be the opportunity to light a candle, to remember and to reflect. A warm welcome awaits everyone whether they are church members, occasional visitors or newcomers.

Rob's Sabbatical

As arranged last year, Rob Green, our Associate Vicar, will be on sabbatical leave from April to June to pursue some study, undertake some travel and have a well-earned rest! It will be very helpful (as always in the case of a sabbatical) if parishioners do not contact Rob during this period. Please direct any queries or communications to me or another member of staff in those months. We wish Rob a really refreshing break.

Trainee Reader

We are looking forward to having Heather Adams with us for a few months from April. Heather is normally based at St Matthew’s, Edgeley, and is in training as a reader. Her placement is from 1st April to 8th July and she will be spending around 5 hours a week in the parish. We look forward to welcoming her into our church community for that period.