Dear St Mary’s,
As we continue in Holy Week, join us this evening for a Maundy Thursday Holy Communion service at 7.30pm at St Gabriel’s Church (near the corner of Havant Road and Wood Street). Then on Good Friday, we will have four services at St Mary’s, as well as a ‘Watch at the Cross’ time of prayer at St Gabriel’s. Our Good Friday services are as follows:
- Good Friday Morning Prayer with Hymns at St Mary’s, 9am
- Messy Good Friday at St Mary’s for children/ families with craft activities, 10.30am
- Watch at the Cross at St Gabriel’s, 12-3pm
- Quiet Easter at St Mary’s for neurodiverse children and their families, 2pm (booking required – book here)
- Evening Good Friday Service at St Mary’s, 7.30pm
And then on Easter Sunday, join us for one of three services at St Mary’s:
- Dawn Service with Easter Fire at St Mary’s (begins outside), 6.30am
- Easter Sunday Holy Communion at St Mary’s, 9am
- Easter Sunday Family Communion at St Mary’s, 10.30am
St Mary’s Play Area and Ruttle & Rowe Cafe Schedule Changes
St Mary’s Play Area and Ruttle & Rowe cafe will be closed on Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Monday. Both the Play Area and Cafe will reopen on Tuesday 7th April.
Holy Week and Easter Volunteers Needed
Every year, we welcome hundreds of people to St Mary’s to share in Holy Week and Easter services. We can’t do that without the generosity and kindness of our church members who welcome, host and guide. If you are able to help prepare resources, serve refreshments or welcome people for services, sign up here or email for more information. Full training will be provided if you are serving in a role for the first time.
Register for Good Friday ‘Quiet Easter’ Service for Neurodiverse Children & Families
Quiet Easter is a 2pm service on Good Friday for neurodiverse children and their families – a place where children can be entirely themselves – and booking is now open. Please note at least one parent/ carer needs to stay with their child/ children during the service; however, tickets only need to be booked for children, as adults do not need a ticket. This is our only Holy Week service which requires booking due to the need to keep numbers low. Book here.
Upcoming Parish Office Hours + Pastoral Contact
Our Parish Office at St Mary’s will be closed from Good Friday, reopening Monday 13th April. For urgent pastoral matters the week after Easter, please contact Revd Tim Scott, Associate Priest at St Mary’s and Area Dean, Waltham Forest, at .
No Knitting & Crochet Group on Saturday 11th April
Our drop-in Knitting & Crochet group, which meets most Saturdays in our Exhibition Space from 10am to 12pm, will not meet on Saturday 11th April but will return on 18th April.
Introduction to the Bible Course Begins 16th April
We are pleased to announce a new Introduction to the Bible course, beginning on Thursday 16th April and running for the following three Thursdays. If the Bible fascinates, challenges, delights, or troubles you, come along to this course which aims to help you know a little more about how to read the Bible, the shape and structure of the Bible, its history and development, and how to approach difficult passages. Led by our lay minister Rob Duddridge, the course is a great opportunity to learn alongside others. Register interest here, speak to Rob or email Vanessa at to find out more.
Organ Fundraising Concert After Sunday 19th April Service
We are delighted to welcome Forest Choir back to perform after our 10.30am service on Sunday 19th April. The choir is helping us fundraise for a new electric organ and installation costs. The concert is free and open to all but donations to our organ fund will be welcome!
Save the Date: Waltham Forest Citizens’ Assembly at St Mary’s on 22nd April
For nearly 15 years, St Mary’s has been a member of the Waltham Forest Citizens’ Alliance. This is a group of local schools, colleges, community groups and faith communities working together on issues which promote the Common Good. Over the years, we have organised around affordable housing, climate and youth safety. On Wednesday 22nd April at 6.30pm, St Mary’s is hosting a borough-wide assembly in advance of the local council elections on 7th May, meeting with candidates for the election and bringing before them stories of local people and the issues which matter to us. This is positive politics where we demonstrate the power of local institutions and their members and show the possibilities for working together across difference. Assemblies are dynamic, fun and inspiring. Register your interest here!
Joining the Electoral Roll
If you consider St Mary’s to be your church home and would like to make a commitment to our church, you can join the electoral roll (different to the roll which allows you to vote in local elections). To join, you must be over 16 and baptised. Joining means that you are eligible to serve on our parish trustee board (PCC) and vote at our annual meeting (APCM), but more importantly, it means that you feel a part of St Mary’s and want to affirm that sense of belonging. You can sign up for the electoral roll here or by visiting stmaryswalthamstow.org/electoralroll. If you signed up last year, you do not need to sign up again as your name will remain on the roll until 2031 unless you ask to be removed. Please speak to Vanessa or email if you have any questions.
10th May Annual Meeting + Serving as a Parish Trustee
Every year, our parish meets to review the year, give thanks and to pray. At our annual meeting, we also recognise the service and leadership of members of our churches, discuss our annual accounts, elect parishioners to serve, and talk about future plans. Our 2026 annual meeting is on Sunday 10th May, 3pm to 4.30pm in St Mary’s, during which time lay leaders, including members of our PCC (our parish trustee board), are elected. All are welcome, but you need to be a member of the Electoral Roll to vote. You might also like to consider becoming a member of the PCC, which helps to guide our strategy and oversee our governance and we are looking for new members. Email for details or for an informal conversation about serving on the PCC.
New Foodshare in the Welcome Centre: Opportunities to Volunteer
Over the last few months, St Mary’s has partnered with Kindwell, a local charity, to offer a foodshare for local residents. Taking unwanted, surplus food from local suppliers, each Sunday evening at 7.15pm, local people can collect free, high quality food from the Welcome Centre, reducing food waste and ensuring as many people as possible have access to good food. After an initial trial, we are delighted to continue hosting the foodshare and Kindwell are now looking for volunteers to collect food (from Marks and Spencers in Woodford, Gail’s in Walthamstow Village, or Marks & Spencer’s in Leytonstone) or set up and serve (7-8pm). For more information or to volunteer, email Hilda Jackson at .
Join St Mary’s Children’s Ministry Team
Children’s Ministry is one of the fastest growing parts of our church life, with occasionally as many as 60 children at our 10.30am service. We celebrate this and recognise that in order to respond to this growth we need to build our team of Children’s Ministry leaders and helpers, as we currently have a small team. Leaders plan and host each session but there are also roles for helpers, who support and assist. Training and support is provided for anyone interested in serving in this way and we follow safer recruitment processes when appointing volunteers. If you are interested in having a conversation about joining the team, sign up via this form or email Revd Jacintha Danaswamy at .
Openings for Regular Classes & Birthday Parties in the Welcome Centre
We have space for new regular bookings as well as children’s birthday parties in the Welcome Centre – our church hall located across the churchyard from St Mary’s – and invite anyone looking for space to get in touch. Alongside monthly giving from our congregation (which is our largest source of income), a significant source of income comes from regular and occasional hires of our Welcome Centre lounge and hall – money which helps us keep the church open in the week. The Welcome Centre is a great space for children’s birthday parties, after-school activities, choir rehearsals, fitness classes and baby and toddler groups. To get in touch, visit welcomecentreE17.org and fill out our enquiry form.
Giving Monthly to St Mary’s
Your financial support is crucial as we work to keep St Mary’s ancient building open to the whole community throughout the week, to support Walthamstow and to share the love of Christ with all. Your donations make this possible as we receive no direct, ongoing support for the day-to-day running of St Mary’s from the Church of England or from the government. Monthly giving is particularly transformative as it allows us to plan, budget, and even expand our work in the community. If you would like to become a monthly giver, we would encourage you to sign up via the Parish Giving Scheme which you can find here or by going to stmaryswalthamstow.org/donate and clicking on the Parish Giving Scheme link.
Safeguarding
St Mary’s takes safeguarding seriously and works hard to ensure that our church is a safe place for everyone. If you see anything that concerns you at St Mary’s, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our Safeguarding Officer Emma Clements at . You can also contact the Diocese of Chelmsford at or Waltham Forest Council at 020 8496 2310.
Reflection: ‘Shaped by God’
Revd Tim Scott, Associate Priest at St Mary’s and Area Dean, Waltham Forest, writes:
A friend of mine gave me a book at the start of Lent called ‘Dappled Beauty’ by Carys Walsh. The book is a journey through Lent, with reflections on a number of poems by Gerald Manley Hopkins.
In one chapter, the author draws a contrast between God shaping us, and the way in which we shape the world through our impoverished selves.
The invitation to be shaped by God is an invitation to find a way to cope with all that life may throw at us, and also to play our part in shaping the world around us in a way which is more Christ-like.
During Holy Week, we re-tell the final events of Jesus’ passion, often in a dramatic or immersive way. Such re-telling provides a landmark in our liturgy each year and also enables us to remember those events which demonstrate the depths of God’s love.
The journey through Holy Week is both an individual and a communal process in which we are able to reflect on how Jesus coped with a whole range of different experiences. This journey, we hope, will give us the resources to better cope in our own lives, and to live more fully and in a more outward-focussed way.
If you are reading this newsletter on Thursday, we are coming to the point where we remember a part of the narrative which is told week by week, that of the Last Supper.
Each Sunday as Communion is celebrated, we remember that last meal which Jesus had with his friends before his crucifixion, and we recall again the redemptive acts of God. We pray that we go out strengthened and fed. But during Holy Week, we remember how, after the intimacy of the meal, everything seemed to go wrong and it seemed as though there would be no further story to tell. We move into a time of anguish, betrayal, pain, death, grief, tears, fear and waiting. Is this how the story will end?
We know that the resurrection ensured that the story did not end in this way, but Holy Week is a particular time of making a connection with the times when we do not know how things are going to work out. The invitation is to allow God to shape us, individually and as a community of faith, and in so doing, to discover renewed resilience, hope, courage and faith.
We live as people of the resurrection, symbolised by the lighting of the Easter candle on Easter day, and I hope and pray that each of us will know the joy of the Risen Christ this Easter. I pray that as we enter, in an immersive way, the narrative of Holy Week, each of us will be shaped by God and discover the resources to cope with all that life throws at us.
And on Easter Sunday we will proclaim: Alleluia Christ is Risen, He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
With my love and prayers,
Tim