Easter has arrived and He is risen!

Dear St Mary’s, 

Since our last newsletter we have journeyed through the depths of Holy Week together as we considered the passion of our saviour and king Jesus Christ. Through darkness, struggle and sorrow we came to the cross and just a few days later we saw death defeated and discovered an empty tomb. In the beauty of Easter Sunday we boldly declared… He is risen! Alleluia!

This Sunday, 7th April, 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 as we continue into the Easter season. 

Note: There will not be children’s groups at the 10.30am service as our volunteers are having a well deserved break. Groups will return on Sunday 14th April.

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. 

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

Due to various members of the clergy team being away on holiday, there will are several days over the next couple of weeks 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. 

Monthly Vespers 

Vespers is our Wednesday evening contemplative service – 40 minutes of poetry, stillness, reflection and music. It’s a beautiful space where many have gathered over 8 years. With the changes to our clergy team Vespers has now moved to a monthly rhythm and will be taking place on the first Wednesday of the month only. We’ll be offering communion after each gathering for those who would like it. 

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 . 

Sanctuary Mental Health Course starting Thursday 2nd May – join us?

We are forming a small group to go through the wonderful Sanctuary Mental Health course together and we have a few more places. Would you like to join? The course was very well-received when we ran it last year. It involves high-quality video instruction, helpful materials such as a workbook, and best of all, enlightening conversations with each other. We’ll meet in St Mary’s on 8 consecutive Thursdays, 2nd May to 20th June 7.30-8.45pm, but don’t worry if you wouldn’t be able to make every single session! Find out more about the course here, and/or speak with Fiona Fouhy or Natalie Burwell who are leading it. If you would like to register your interest or ask a question, please contact and Natalie will get in touch with you.

Looking to serve in St Mary’s? Join a team

There are lots of ways to be part of St Mary’s and the best way is to join a team. As our church grows, we are looking for more people to lead and support our different ministries. Could you be part of one of these teams: 

  – Our youth and children’s ministry teams (once a month/once every two months) 

  – Our coffee and welcome teams 

  – Our intercessions team (the people who lead our prayers on a Sunday morning ) 

If you think you would like to be part of one of these teams, please email any member of the clergy (Tim, Alan or Jacintha) and we would love to talk to you about how you can be involved or email Josie on . 

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! 

EcoTip: 

Turning the laundry day blues green

The washing and drying of our clothes accounts for 120 million tonnes of CO2e each year! Here are some more tips to help you reduce the footprint of your clothing:

1. Avoid Plastic Microfibres  – As you ensure that any new (or second-hand) clothes that you buy are built to last, consider the material that the clothes are made out of. Polyester, acrylic and nylon clothing shed plastic micro fibres during each wash which then pollute the ocean. Each year, half a million tonnes of plastic microfibers from these clothes reach the ocean! Buying clothes made from natural materials such as wool and linen, that do not pollute and will eventually biodegrade, can help to reduce your environmental impact. 

2. Wash Smart – In the UK we have improved at washing at lower temperatures, but further savings can be made, by ensuring to wash certain clothes (such as jeans and jumpers) less often, fitting more garments into each wash and hang drying as much as possible. By turning the washer down from 40 to 30 degrees and hang drying rather than tumble drying can bring the emissions per wash down from 2.4kg CO2e to 0.6kg CO2e. 

Please pray for:

• Please pray for St Lukes as they continue to seek God’s heart for the future of this important ministry
• Please pray for our young people and their families over this Easter break for rest, joy and protection
• Pray for our local councillors and MP 
• Please pray for all people living through violence and conflict 
• Pray for Vanessa and Cameron and their new family
• 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 our PCC as they continue to guide our parish and make important decisions
• Please continue to 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 our Vespers team and our new monthly rhythm. That it will continue to be a place of welcome and belonging for many
• Please pray for all who are suffering in body, mind or spirit

Reflection:

Natalie Burwell writes – 

Have you ever been so immersed in a movie that you come out of it totally confused about where you are? If it was nighttime in the film and it’s sunny outside, or day and you emerge in the dark, it feels really disorientating. And maybe this is just me, but especially when I was a child, I would often feel that the film had somehow leaked into the real world. Ordinary objects would look hyper-real, sounds felt more distinct. As if the empty mall food court, the teenager in the black T-shirt sweeping up, and the grey parking lot were holding more meaning than usual. But then the strangeness would fade and things just were what they were.

Holy Week and Easter Sunday can be such an immersive sensory experience as we live for a while in the ancient story of dangerous journeys, tender goodbyes, betrayal, execution, and an empty tomb. Or it may be that life works out so that we can’t really feel caught up in this huge story. Instead, our time may be filled with work, illness or exhaustion, emptiness, or tending to the needs of others. If we sometimes feel we have lost the holy plot, we are not alone!

The great thing is that the church tries hard not to leave anyone behind. It tries to sustain us all on a long journey toward meaning — unlike the blockbuster films that want to hook us on adrenaline and spectacle. So I love that Easter, like Christmas, is a whole season. The story goes on, and there is always a chance to find ourselves in it. 

We can be assured that the Holy Spirit will be with us, always ready to light up the ordinary stuff of life to show us the plot-line of Love. Wherever there is surprise and life-giving strangeness in everyday life, the Holy Spirit is probably involved.

And on our Eastertide journey, rhythms and spiritual practices like the prayer and contemplation we practise in Vespers can help sustain us. As will the joyful liturgy of our life together on Sundays and the action for social justice that we take together.

This Sunday we will hear what the disciples did next. Thomas needs to see things with his own eyes to believe something so strange as the resurrection. And Jesus offers his own body to Thomas to help him believe. There is always time to catch up with Jesus’s love, and that great love is always seeking us. In Eastertide, may we each be drawn deeper into knowledge of God’s life-giving love. May the Holy Spirit light up our everyday lives so we see what Love is doing. Amen.