Dear St Mary’s, 

On Sunday 31st August, we’ll celebrate Holy Communion at 9am and again at 10.30am, with Revd Vanessa Conant leading and presiding and Jo Talbott, our children’s ministry team leader, preaching. This is the last in our Summer Sunday series exploring the lives of significant figures from the Old Testament, and this Sunday, we will look at Esther. 

This Sunday, there will be activities for children to work on during the 10.30am service, with supervised children’s groups returning next week.

At our 10.30am service, we will have a ‘Blessing of the Backpacks’ and are encouraging children, young people and school staff to bring their school bags to church to be blessed in advance of a new school year starting in September. We will also pray for teachers, children and young people at 9am. For those unable to join us in person this Sunday, we will livestream the 9am service to our Facebook page.  

We hope to see you this Sunday at St Mary’s! 

Free Family Activities Continue on Thursday 28th August and Friday 29th August 
Our brilliant team of staff, clergy and volunteers have loved putting on free family activities this week at St Mary’s and will finish with Retro Gaming today (Thursday 28th August) and Family Films tomorrow (Friday 29th August). On both days, join us for our morning session (10am-12pm) or afternoon session (1.30pm-3.30pm) – or come for both! Parents and carers must stay with their child throughout the sessions, but no booking is required, just turn up. 

Vespers Returns on Wednesday 3rd September 
Join us on Wednesday 3rd September at 7.30pm for our monthly Vespers gathering – 40 minutes of stillness with Holy Communion celebrated afterwards in the side chapel. Vespers is held on the first Wednesday of every month – a beautiful candlelit space in our ancient building where many have gathered over eight years to practise contemplative prayer, explore faith or simply sit in silence. Whether you’re looking to deepen your prayer life or just need a quiet place to sit, please come along to Vespers – it would be wonderful to have you. 

Marriage Preparation Course to Begin on 7th September  
Are you considering getting married or are you currently planning a wedding? St Mary’s will run a free Marriage Preparation Course for couples on three consecutive Sunday afternoons beginning 7th September, 3pm-4.30pm. The course is a great opportunity for all couples to consider and discuss the building blocks of a lasting relationship. St Mary’s is an inclusive church and our course is open to all couples, including those getting married elsewhere. To register or to learn more, please email Josie Wilson at . 

New to Faith or Considering Baptism or Confirmation? Try ‘Discovering Christianity’ 
Explore faith with a four-week course starting 11th September and running for four consecutive Thursdays, 7.30pm-9pm, in the church. The course is ideal for anyone interested in learning more about the Christian faith or considering getting baptised or confirmed. We will be discussing the book, ‘Discovering Christianity: A Guide For The Curious’ by Rowan Williams. Sign up here or email .

Opportunity to Give Blood at St Mary’s on 2nd October 
The next opportunity to give blood at St Mary’s will be on Thursday 2nd October. For those who would like to donate blood, the best way to do this is to book through the Give Blood app or via www.blood.co.uk. If there is a slot available at St Mary’s, that will be noted when you book. Please note the booking process is not managed by us but by the NHS. 

Save the Date:12th October Evening Confirmation Service with Bishop Lynne 
There will be a Deanery Confirmation service at St Edmund’s, Chingford, on Sunday 12th October. Confirmation is a special service in which a person confirms the promises that were made for them at baptism (also known as ‘Christening’). If you were baptised at a christening when you were a child, your parents and godparents made these promises on your behalf, however, as a young person or adult, you may now be ready to affirm these promises for yourself and publicly commit to following Jesus Christ, something which happens at a confirmation service. Your friends and family as well as the local Christian community are there to promise to support and pray for you. At the service, Bishop Lynne will also lay hands on the candidates’ heads and ask God’s Holy Spirit to help them follow Christ. Register your interest in being confirmed here, or speak to Revd Vanessa Conant to find out more.

BBC Radio 4’s ‘Gardeners’ Question Time’ Coming to St Mary’s on 3rd November 
We are excited to announce that on the evening of Monday 3rd November, St Mary’s will host two live tapings of ‘Gardeners’ Question Time’, the much-loved BBC Radio 4 programme. Ticket-holders will sit through back-to-back tapings of separate episodes of the iconic programme, which will take approximately two hours in total. Tickets will be released in early autumn for the recordings, and will be available from St Mary’s for £4.50 per ticket. We look forward to announcing more details, including how to get a ticket, in September! 

St Mary’s New Churchyard Trail 
You may have noticed some new wooden posts throughout the churchyard with QR codes – this is our new churchyard trail and we’d love for you to try it. Our aim is to encourage people to explore more of our beautiful churchyards, and those with a smartphone can scan the QR code on each post to learn more about the natural or historical features of Walthamstow Village’s largest green space, which also contains the graves of some fascinating people. In the near future, we plan to have paper copies of the trail available for those who don’t use a smartphone. Many thanks to our head gardener Tim Hewitt and to churchyard volunteer David Christmas who were both integral in helping us make the trail a reality! 

Please pray this week for:

• Refugees and asylum seekers to be treated with kindness, respect and compassion 
• The charged political rhetoric around asylum seekers: for a change in tone  
• Christians to be salt and light, working to bring diverse communities together
• Leaders of Christian communities in the UK and around the world, including our bishops Lynne and Guli, Pope Leo, and Christians in Gaza and other places of war 
• The work of our Walthamstow Welcomes cafe as it helps people with confusing paperwork and those who are navigating difficult life situations 
• Those in our church and parish considering baptism, confirmation or exploring faith 
• Children, young people, teachers and school staff as a new school year begins 
• Ongoing conflicts around the world including conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan 
• People who are struggling to make ends meet 
• The work of climate campaigners working to bring an end to the fossil fuel era 
• The ministry of St Mary’s and for all who engage with us in any way 
• All who are unwell in body, mind and spirit, and for those who care for them 

Upcoming Events at St Mary’s 

• Saturday 20th September
  
  • Mrs H and Singalong Band (children’s band), 10.30am. Tickets will be available from St Mary’s in early September. 
    
  • Walthamstow Film Lounge – a screening of the film ‘Metropolis’ with a live band, 7pm (tickets available here or by visiting www.stowfilmlounge.com)
    
  • Worth Unlimited (youth charity) Quiz Evening, 7.30pm: £10 tickets available on the door, here, or by visiting www.worthunlimited.co.uk/quiznight.
    
• Saturday 27th September
  
  • ‘Stories and Supper’: an evening of conversation and poetry. Tickets and more details coming in September 

• Thursday 2nd October
  
  • Blood donation at St Mary’s, 9am-5pm 

• Friday 3rd October
  
  • Salsatecha: an evening of salsa for beginners and advanced dancers. More details in September. 

• Saturday 18th October
  
  • St Mary’s Community Quiz night. Booking details will be announced in September. 

Reflection: ‘Christianised Evil’ 
Revd Vanessa Conant, Rector of St Mary’s, writes: 

A number of years ago, I was privileged to join a trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of Church of England leadership training. The purpose of our trip was to witness the worst of human conflict and to learn about efforts towards reconciliation. Whilst the war in Bosnia (1992-1995) involved all the different people groups in the country, our visit was intended to help us face the stark reality of ‘Christianised evil’. Specifically, we came to learn about the Srebrenica massacre in which thousands of Muslim men and boys were systematically murdered and buried in mass graves. 

I find my thoughts returning often to Bosnia and to memories of that trip at the moment, not least because this year marked the 30 year anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. I find myself remembering the stone minarets and Turkish coffee of central Sarajevo – the call to prayer blending with the bells of the Italianate Croatian churches. I remember the long drives through endless autumnal forests and the gracious hospitality we were shown. 

I remember, too, the harrowing silence of the former battery factory where 30 years ago, thousands of Bosnian Muslims, guarded by a tiny Dutch peacekeeping force, thought they were safe, only to be abandoned to genocidal violence. I remember sitting on benches in the cavernous empty factory, while the Mothers of Srebrenica told us their stories. I remember the wordless walk across the road to the hillside marked by the countless white gravestones of those who died. I remember the bone identification project, where families still searched, with the help of scientists, for those who were lost and had never been found. I remember the museum next to our hotel, filled with horrifying stories of Sarajevans who one day lent cups of sugar to their neighbours and the next found themselves to be enemies in a war of exceptional brutality. I cannot bear to recount most of the stories I read. 

Two things stand out in my memory of that trip. The first was a story on the wall of that museum: a man who endured unspeakable violence at the hand of a neighbour, who said simply, ‘we could never imagine that this could happen here or to us. We were the dearest of friends.’ And the second was a talk from the British ambassador who described the fragility and complexity of the peace agreement, how many feared that the violence that had so ravaged the country was never far away and that it wouldn’t take much for it to return. He said, ‘this is a diverse country made up of Bosniak Muslims, Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats. When it suits those with political power and vested interests, they stoke ethnic tension to distract from corruption and inequality. The danger is that they will stoke the embers into an inferno.’

I thought about it again when, driving along a UK motorway last week, I saw every bridge adorned with the flag of St George. I thought about it when crowds gathered outside hotels housing asylum seekers and refugees, their protests sometimes violent and often laced with menace. I thought about it when the news was filled with the rhetoric of politicians calling for mass deportations and the detention of children. I thought about those who would stir up division and hatred in our own country, rather than address the true root causes of poverty, inequality and injustice. 

I thought about our own fragility, the things which bubble under the surface all around us. I thought about how most people imagine that violent conflict is unthinkable until it happens. And I thought of the weight of sorrow in knowing that it was people who professed to be Christians who perpetrated the horrors of Srebrenica. 

It strikes me that these are important moments in both our national life and, as Christians, in our discipleship. How shall we respond to those things we see around us and how shall we strengthen our inner life such that the temptations towards division, disavowal and even hatred of the other (whoever that may be) can be resisted? How are we not complicit in Christianised evil?

In our text for this Sunday, Esther, Queen of Persia, finds herself called to protect the Jewish people against Haman, a senior official in the King’s court, who is plotting a genocide of the Jews. The calling requires great courage, risk, wisdom and ingenuity. As she ponders her vocation, her Jewish guardian and adoptive uncle, Mordecai, says to Esther: ‘And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?’ Her story is being woven into God’s story and entrusted to her is the safety, the protection of God’s people. She cannot look away; she has to act. 

In worship, in community and in service, we are invited to root ourselves ever deeper in the love that is God so that we, like Esther, can be faithful to his call. When we sing together, when we study Scripture and pray, when we share in bread and wine and when we show care for one another and our wider community in service, we are schooling ourselves in fearless love and seeking to resist those forces that call us to violence or division. 

When we confess – recognising our frailty – and receive the promise of redemption, we are not fleeing from reality but increasing our capacity to bear it. Only this perfect love of God can strengthen our hearts and minds for all that is happening in the world around us. Only this love can give us the courage, the wisdom, the grace and the hope to proclaim and embody a different kingdom. Only this love can prepare us for such a time as this. 

With love, 

Vanessa