Dear St Mary’s,

It was so good to end the  Church year with you and celebrate Christ the King alongside Robyn’s baptism. A new year  – and a new season – begins this Sunday. Before the joyful wonder of Christmas are the weeks of Advent, a quieter, powerful and reflective season inviting us to prepare our hearts both for the celebration of the Jesus born amongst us and for the return of Christ at the end of time. 

We mark this new season with two services of Holy Communion at 9am and 10.30am and with the baptism of adults – please pray for Elin and Grace as they prepare for baptism at our 10.30am service. There will be children’s groups for children aged 2-11 and our baby lounge will be open in the South Vestry. 

At 5pm, our Youth Group will meet for a Christmas party in the Welcome Centre lounge. 

At 6pm, there is evening prayer in the lounge. 

Advent Rosary Group

If you are coming to the Advent Rosary group on Thursday (30/11), we are meeting in the Welcome Centre lounge at 7.30pm. If you have not notified Jacintha by email or completed the form, please email us so we can ensure we have enough materials for the group. We are looking forward to seeing you. 

Join a Christmas Team – we need you! We begin to build our Christmas teams in earnest from the beginning of Advent. There are roles for everyone – from making Christingle materials from the comfort of your own home, to helping us set out chairs for the over 1500 people who come through our door on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Serving on a Christmas team is a great way to get to know people in church and one of the highlights of our year is welcoming our community to St Mary’s. Please sign up via this link to support one of our Christmas services.

Join our community Christmas choir and sing with us at Carols by Candlelight. There’s still time to join our community Christmas choir and sing at our Carols by Candlelight service on Sunday 17th December. We have two rehearsals on Friday 8th (Welcome Centre) and Friday 15th December (in St Mary’s) and then a rehearsal on Sunday afternoon before the service. You will be sent the music and parts to learn at home and anyone is welcome. Feel free to invite friends and family too. Sign up here to join.

Community Carolling – join us around Walthamstow to sing. We’re taking our Carols outside again this year and there are three opportunities to join in with community carol singing. 

17th December – after church at the Farmers’ Market (join with St Luke’s for carols at the top of the High Street).

20th December  (Wednesday) at 6pm – Carols on the Drive and Attlee Terrace (meet on the green space at the end of The Drive for hot chocolate and Christmas carols).

20th December (Wednesday) at 7.30pm, Carols on Wood Street (join our sister church, St Gabriel’s, for Carols on the Square near the Co-op and Library on Wood Street). 

St Luke’s 

Last week, we shared the news that St Luke’s will be holding its final stall on the Farmers’ Market on 17th December after church until 2pm  – if you have loved and appreciated St Luke’s ministry over the years or been part of the team, please do join them for carols on the market on that day. On 28th January at 4pm, we will be holding a service of thanksgiving at St Mary’s to celebrate all that has happened through the market and you are warmly invited. And after this, a new period of discernment as to where God is calling us in this new season and praying especially for the High Street and the surrounding streets and how we serve this part of our parish. Please join us to give thanks for the ministry of St Luke’s and consider whether you might like to be part of the future discernment. 

Donations Needed – Warm Hats and Gloves
Thank you so much to all who donated warm hats and gloves this week to give to the Waltham Forest College warm clothes bank. This Sunday is the last Sunday to give – Rachel will be collecting the items this week and you are warmly invited to bring any hats or gloves to church. 

Christmas Events in our Building
We’re pleased to welcome a number of choirs to our building in the coming weeks for some beautiful concerts:

Norrsang Choir (the East London Swedish Choir) host their much-loved Sankta Lucia concerts at St Mary’s. With beautiful music, an abundance of candles and Swedish gluhwein, it’s a special event for all ages. There are tickets remaining for the Saturday night concert (8-9pm). Follow this link to book tickets and find out more.  

London Forest Choir. Our own Jonathan Rathbone directs the wonderful Forest Choir and each year they hold a remarkable Christmas extravaganza concert with both choir and orchestra. Not to be missed – you can find out more and book tickets here.

Advent Bible Study: Read the Gospel of Luke in 24 days

If you are eager to mark Advent in some way but unable to join the rosary group or need something simple you can do at home, why not take up the Advent challenge of reading the Gospel of Luke through Advent. The Gospel is 24 chapters, meaning that reading a chapter a day will tell you the whole story of Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection over the course of the Advent season. 

EcoTip of the Week 

Here’s a simple framework for things you can do about the climate crisis: 

1) Swap dirty energy for clean energy (that may mean choosing to walk or take public transport more often, choosing to travel by train rather than fly, going electric instead of gas where you can).

2) Share facts and concerns and positive solutions with family and friends (did you know that sharing your concerns about the climate is one of the most impactful things you can do to make change? You don’t have to be a harbinger of doom: simply talk about your concerns and ask loved ones about theirs).

3) Speak up and share your climate concerns with policymakers. You can do that through petitions, letter writing, or joining a group such as our EcoChurch or Just Transition teams.

Please pray: 

• Please pray for Elin and Grace as they prepare for baptism and for baby Tennyson whom we will baptise later that day 
• Please continue to pray for the situation in Israel/Palestine, remembering especially the churches here as they seek to minister, worship and serve
• Please pray for our church community as we mark Advent, may it be a season of deep reflection and encouragement 
• Please pray for all those who are struggling with hunger and cold 
• Please pray for the churches in our team ministry, remembering especially St Luke’s as they prepare to enter a new season of discernment
• Please pray for all who are unwell, housebound or grieving 
  
  

I love Advent. If I haven’t bored you before about how this is one of my most treasured seasons, precious and powerful, I can assure you that this is to come in the weeks ahead. I love its music, its readings, its rituals and its invitations. I am awed and stilled by it, it brings me closer to God. 

This year, Advent has a new perspective. In the last couple of years, my husband, Cameron, and I have begun to explore adoption and in recent months we were approved by a panel and have been in a process of matching with children waiting for adoption. We are still in that process and there are more steps to come but it is likely that in the new year, we will welcome children to our home and begin the journey of becoming adoptive parents. This Advent, this season of waiting and preparation has new weight, new purpose and a new depth of prayer. 

There are practical implications of this, of course, for our church and over the coming weeks, as more details are established, I will be sharing the plans with you. The Diocese is working out some arrangements to ensure there is provision and cover for our parish during my period of adoption leave and I am very grateful for their support. 

But for now, I wanted to thank you. Many people in St Mary’s have enabled me to explore this new part of our family’s vocation through their own experience of adoption or foster care and I have been moved and encouraged by these journeys of loving faithfulness. Thank you for sharing them with me. 

But it is every person in our church, everyone who makes St Mary’s, that has made us feel that this is a beautiful, healing, loving place into which we could invite children to make their home and where we know they will be loved and nurtured, where they can grow up experiencing the love of Christ in the faces of their community. 

Adoption as children of God is at the heart of the story of every Christian – it is part of the story we prepare to celebrate during Advent. In Galatians 4, Paul writes: But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.

I pray that this Advent, you may know that merciful, unending, powerful love of God who invites us into his family and I ask for your prayers as we prepare to welcome children to ours. 

With love,

Vanessa