Pew Sheet for Easter Sunday

Good Friday and Easter form the core of a major tenet of our faith: that Christ was crucified on the cross, died and rose again from the tomb and in doing so, redeemed mankind. The symbolism of death and rebirth is reflected in the timing of the festival, held at a time of year when we bid farewell to Winter and welcome the Spring. This year’s relatively early Easter and the vagaries of the gulf stream mean that we may be waiting a while longer for Spring to burst forth but the weekend should give us a chance to shake the metaphorical snow from our boots and look forward with gladness to the Summer to come. We hope you will join us in church on this most important feast in the christian year.

Please click here to see the Pew Sheet for 31.3.13

Pew Sheet for the last Sunday before Lent

The final Sunday before Lent marks the beginning of a very busy week. Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday fall on the 12th and 13th, respectively. Each feast calls us to be mindful of God’s wish that we celebrate the bounties of creation and that we take time to step aside from material things and spend Lent reflecting on the life of Christ, his death on the Cross and the cycle of life, death and rebirth implicit in the liturgical calendar.

Click here to open the Pew sheet for 10th Feb

Notice of Services for Lavenham Benefice for March 2013

Easter falls early this year, at the end of March. Will we still see snow on the ground in the Benefice on Eater Day? The Vernal Equinox, first day of Spring in the solar calendar, will only have passed 8 days beforehand. This feels like a happy coincidence with the Easter festival, heavy with the sybolism of new life.

In preparation for Easter, the Lent Course will be running, as in February, on Monday evenings at 9.45am in Lavenham Village Hall. We hope you can join us in our study, prayer and celebration.

Click here to open the Services sheet for March 2013

Benefice Services for April

As Lent draws to a close it is worth taking note of some of our programme of worship, building towards Easter.

Palm Sunday

Services for Palm Sunday will be as follows:

8am Lavenham Holy Communion (Book of Common Prayer)

9am Preston St Mary Holy Communion (Book of Common Prayer)

10.15am Lavenham Parish Communion (Common Worship)

Maundy Thursday

7.30pm Lavenham Holy Communion. The traditional ‘Washing of feet” will take place at this service – participation in this element of Maundy Thursday worship is optional.

Good Friday

12.00pm (Noon) Preston St Mary People’s Passion Service

2.00pm Lavenham ‘Final Hour’ Meditiation

Easter Day – Sunday 8th April

6.30am Preston St Mary ‘New Fire’ sunrise service

8.00am Lavenham Holy Communion (Book of Common Prayer)

10.15am Lavenham Parish Communion (Common Worship)

6.00pm Preston St Mary Holy Communion (Book of Common Prayer)

Worship after Easter

For details of worship on Low Sunday and other services later in Easter, please check the sheet accessed through the link following… Click here for details of services for Lavenham benefice April 2012

Looking forward to this year’s Lent Course

Lent and Spring are synonymous in old English: lencten. It is, traditionally, the “long fast” in the Christian calendar, when we set aside worldly matters to meditate on the life spiritual, to prepare for baptism, to confess our sins and our faith in preparation for Easter. Many eschew meat and fish – or more contemporary treats like chocolate - after Shrove Tuesday (carneval). Perhaps we can use this distance from luxury to focus our minds on the Word of God?

Lavenham and Preston St Mary will be running a Lent Course again this year, to stimulate our thinking about the Christian life and the meaning of the Resurrection. The theme of this year’s course will be “Signs of the Kingdom” and will begin on the 27th of February in Lavenham Village Hall. The first session, “The man born blind – Light” will be at 9.45am with sessions 2-5 on the Mondays following, also starting at 9.45. Details on the lent course poster