Easter Weekend + Retro Gaming … Jesus is Alive! 

Dear St Mary’s, 

It was wonderful seeing so many in church on Palm Sunday happily waving our palm crosses and welcoming the King of Glory on a humble donkey. As we entered into Holy Week we began to embrace the cries of Praise, Pain and Passion that lead towards a final out cry from the depths of our hearts… He is Alive!

This Sunday, 31st March, is Easter Sunday! We will celebrate Holy Communion at both 9am and 10.30am services with Rev Alan Moss leading and presiding and Rev Tim Scott will be preaching at both services. All are welcome to come and join us for this celebratory service. There are also a number of other services taking place during Holy Week, which are mentioned in more detail below.

Note: There will not be evening prayer this Sunday evening. It will return on the following Sunday.

Holy Week and Easter:

Maundy Thursday Communion Service at St. Gabriel’s (Thursday 28th March 7:30pm): An evening service with communion where we prepare for Easter.

Messy Good Friday (Friday 29th March, 10am-12pm): free craft, activities and stories for children and their families. A great way to mark Good Friday with children.

Good Friday Evening Service (Friday 29th March, 7.30pm): the choir leads us in Jonathan Rathbone’s beautiful, ‘Seven Last Words from the Cross’. The service includes scripture, poetry and prayers.

Quiet Easter (Saturday 30th March, 4pm): a service on Holy Saturday specifically designed for neurodiverse children and children with additional needs (booking required – book here).

Easter Sunday (Sunrise Service on the High Street, leaving from St Mary’s at 6.15am, followed by Holy Communion Easter Sunday services in St Mary’s at both 9am and 10.30am): joyful celebrations of Jesus’ resurrection and our unending hope. 

Froth & Rind to close, St Mary’s cafe to remain open

Some of you may have heard that our friends and cafe partners Froth & Rind are sadly closing. Froth & Rind currently run our St Mary’s cafe in addition to their original Walthamstow Village location on Orford Road. Froth & Rind will close their Orford Road location on 31st May but will continue to run our St Mary’s cafe well into June, with the intention of ensuring a seamless transition to a new cafe provider. We are pleased to report that we are already in discussions with a possible new cafe partner and hope to formally announce a new cafe partnership in the months to come. We want to thank Fraser and the entire Froth & Rind team – their partnership has been absolutely crucial in helping us to get St Mary’s ancient building open to the whole community throughout the week. 

Easter Sunday breakfast at 7:45am outside St Mary’s

After our Easter Sunrise Service on the High Street, we will return to St Mary’s to share breakfast in the pedestrianised area just outside of church, with food in the Welcome Centre if it’s raining. If you would like to join us, please let us know in advance so that we can ensure that we have enough food! Email Donna at .

No Morning Prayer on 1st, 11th, 12th, 18th & 19th of April 

There will be no Morning Prayer on Easter Monday, 1st April. Due to various members of the clergy team being away on holiday, there will also be several other days after Easter that we will be unable to hold Morning Prayer – including on the 11th and 12th of April as well as on the 18th and 19th of April – but we will return to our normal pattern on Monday 22nd April. 

Retro Video Games at St Mary’s: Friday 5th April, 12 Noon to 6pm

Back by popular demand, Revd Alan Moss will bring his mix of retro video games and modern consoles to St Mary’s on Friday 5th April from 12 Noon to 6pm, including Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation5, Nintendo Switch and more. This is a great event for children, young people and families – and it’s completely free. Our cafe and Play Area will also be running until 4pm. If you have any questions, email Alan at . 

Every Thursday: St Mary’s parents’ meet up from 11.30am-1pm in church 

Come and join St Mary’s parents, carers and little ones every Thursday from 11.30am to 1pm in St Mary’s Church for coffee and a catch up. Vanessa Chance, a member of St Mary’s, will be there with her daughter to welcome you! Come and get to know other parents and carers in a friendly and relaxed setting. Our soft play area (recommended £3 donation) and cafe will be open. For more information, email . 

Join our Church AV Team: Training on 23rd and 24th April, 7-9pm

Considering volunteering? Interested in developing new technical skills? Why not join our AV team, with training on 23rd and 24th April from 7-9 pm. Both sessions are identical so feel free to come to one or both! Learn how to operate our new system and become an essential part of our Sunday Services. Following the training, you will also have the chance to shadow experienced team members during Sunday Services from 12-26 May. For more information, contact Dan Copperwheat, Operations Manager, at . 

Save the Date: London Mayoral Assembly on Thursday 25th April at 6pm

You may know that St Mary’s is a founding member of Waltham Forest Citizens, which is our local Citizens UK alliance – a group of schools, faith institutions and community groups that listen to each other and the wider community and then act on the things we want to change, from youth violence and low-paid work to unaffordable housing and high energy bills. 

This spring, thousands will join in person and online to put our agenda to the next Mayor of London. We’ve created a manifesto that will benefit our city – one which has involved local people working to identify positive solutions to the problems we face; this includes homelessness and housing, migration and refugees, ensuring a Living Wage and tackling climate change. London Citizens will gather to ask the top two mayoral candidates to commit to our manifesto, and a group of us will travel together from St Mary’s on 25th April. Email to book a free ticket. Friends and family are welcome too! 

Bring-and-Share Breakfast at 20 Melville Road: Saturday 6th April, 9.30am

As part of discerning future ministry opportunities on the High Street, there will be a bring-and-share Prayer Breakfast on Saturday 6th April, 9.30-11.30am, at 20 Melville Rd E17 6QT, led by Donna Gwilliams. Bacon and sausages provided with no need to book. 

EcoTip: 

Spring into sustainability this Easter! 

Our tips this week help you to be carbon conscious this Easter:

1. Choose Eco Eggs – When picking your chocolate eggs, consider what you can do to reduce their impact. There are plenty of ways you can select an egg that is more sustainable without compromising on taste by thinking about the amount of packaging and if it is recyclable or plastic free, whether the chocolate is fair trade and organic or even if you could get a vegan dark chocolate egg. This goes for all the Easter chocolate, not just the eggs. 

2. Sustainable Sunday Roast – When it comes to the Easter roast, ensure to utilise eco-tips, such as using in season food and avoiding air miles, unsustainable palm oil and excessive plastic packaging. In addition, if you do have meat with your roast; purchase sustainable and ethically farmed meat, although you could consider going meat free! You could also consider self-serve portions to make sure that people only take what they eat to help reduce food waste.

Please pray for:

• Please pray for those leading our various Holy Week services and Easter celebrations
• Please pray for all those who will be joining us at our Holy Week and Easter services, especially those who may be venturing into St Marys for the first time
• Pray for our local councillors and MP 
• Please pray for all people living through violence and conflict 
• Pray for Vanessa and Cameron as they enter a new season in their lives
• Please continue to pray for St Mary’s as we too enter a new season, giving thanks to God for each other.
• Please pray for Revd Tim Scott as he leads our parish over this next year.
• Pray for Revd Dr Sue Lucas, newly appointed Area Dean of Waltham Forest and her work supporting the Anglican Churches within Waltham Forest
• Please pray for all who are suffering in body, mind or spirit

Reflection:

Rev Alan Moss writes:

Holy week is a time when we discover the depths of God’s heart for us through the Creator’s relentless pursuit of a fallen creation driven by a love that surpasses all understanding. We have travelled from the joyful praise of “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” through cries of “Crucify” and “Why have you forsaken me” and eventually arrive at “He is risen”!  

Lent and Easter are very much about discovering the depths of God’s heart but they are also about discovering the depths of our own hearts and souls. Perhaps we relate to the idea of friends who praise us one minute and turn on us the next. Or maybe we have felt the darkness of feeling abandoned and like we have been forsaken. But the truth is, we are stronger than we know and loved more than we can imagine. The journey of Holy Week causes us to look inward as much as upward, we are confronted with ourselves in the wilderness journey and perhaps even on the cross itself where Jesus bears the weight of our transgressions. 

But the good news of Easter is that no matter how heavy the cross may be in our lives, Christ’s love and grace helps us bear the weight. 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 reminds us that every time we come to the communion table we participate in not only the death of Jesus but in His resurrected life as well and we become the body of Christ. We actively participate, not passively observe, because the call of Christ is a call to be transformed. Perhaps it’s easier to identify ourselves with the cross and the brokenness, but the reality is that we are just as present in the resurrection as well. Death we are told has been defeated therefore our inheritance is life in the fullest. So as we enter the Easter season I pray that we will all know and experience the outrageous love of Jesus.
I leave you with this passage from Romans 8:11 as we learn together this coming season what “He is Alive” truly means. ‘And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.’ Amen.