An Update from Rachel for Holy Week

Dear Friends,

As we prepare to enter Holy Week, we recognise that this is a different walk through Holy Week than we had been expecting! We are delighted that Bishop Debbie will still be joining us in the parishes of Lymington and Pennington this season, albeit virtually.

Coming up at St Mark’s and St Thomas’ through Holy Week

All the youtube services will be available on our youtube channel:

Sunday 5th April, we have our Palm Sunday communion service at 9:30am on youtube, and many of our readers from across both the parishes of Pennington and Lymington have been working together to create our virtual reading of the Passion Gospel. Obviously this service will be slightly different, as we won’t be able to give you the usual palm crosses, however, please follow this link for some ideas about how you could make your own palm cross to use within our worship. We will also be showing you how to make an Easter Garden at home, that you can use in your prayers throughout the week.

Monday – Wednesday, we will be sharing Compline with you at 7pm on youtube.

Maundy Thursday, 9 th April at 7pm Bishop Debbie will be leading a Bible Study on Zoom.

Full details are below and all are welcome to join us, you can phone in, or you can use your computer to join the conversation. We look forward to welcoming people from across both our churches to take part in this conversation.

After the bible study, at 7:45pm on youtube there will be a reflective service and meditation.

Good Friday, 10th April, from 12-3pm we will have our planned three hours at the cross. Prior to Corona, our plan had been to spend an hour at St Thomas, to then walk from St Thomas to St Mark’s for the middle hour, and then to have an hour at St Mark’s. This year, our Archdeacon, Peter Rouch, will be jonining us virtually, and will be leading a reflection at midday, 1pm and 2pm, ending with prayer at 3pm.

There will be space for reflective music and meditation on the cross in between. You are welcome to join us on youtube for the three hours at the cross, or to join in for any parts of it that help you in your journey through Holy Week.

Saturday at 8pm on, we will have an Easter Vigil, the first official celebration of the Resurrection. Do join us on youtube, if you’ve got a bottle of bubbly, feel free to have it chilled and ready to pop at the end of the service, as we start to celebrate the Resurrection.

Easter Sunday, you get a lie-in, as we won’t be having our usual dawn service! We’d love to see you at 9:30am on youtube, Bishop Debbie will be preaching, as together we celebrate the joy of Easter, even as together, we are all travelling in this unusual extended Lenten season.

Crochet through Corona?

If you know anyone that does not have internet access, but would like to phone in, to share in any of the services and events on youtube, please do share with them the zoom phone details below. The audio for all our services will be shared in this zoom channel, to allow those with less technology available to them, to be able to participate in our worship.

This week, you may also have spotted that many of the flowers, eggs and crosses that you knitted and crocheted are now on our churchyard hedge. Paul has shared a video of this, and the press have also run some stories. We are encouraging you to keep knitting and crocheting at home, you may want to continue with flowers, or you may want to use creative ideas on the themes of love, hope, charity and community. Please keep the items you make at home, and once it is safe to do so, we look forward to collecting them all together and having a colourful celebration on our hedge!

We are working on plans for after Easter, to start some of our usual meetings in a virtual space,
including our coffee morning, crafting group, choir and bible study groups. Next weekend, we hope to share with you more details for how you can take part.

A huge thank you to those that are able to continue financially supporting the work of the church. A couple of you had volunteered to move to giving through the Parish Giving Scheme. We’ve just found out, that they are not currently able to accept new givers in this season. However, please do consider using our donations option on our webpage.

My prayer, is that even through this unusual season, you may encounter something more of God’s love and presence as we walk the path together to the cross.

Rachel

Instructions for zoom Bible Study on Thursday at 7pm:

Either join online using this link, https://zoom.us/j/9716310618 – or to phone in:

  • please dial 0203 695 0088. You will hear:”Welcome to Zoom, enter your meeting id followed by hash“.
  • The meeting id you need to enter is: 971 631 0618 #
  • You will then hear it say “Enter your participant id followed by hash, otherwise just press hash” Please just press the # key.

You will then be part of a conference call, and you will be able to talk to others from the church that have already joined it.

1 thought on “An Update from Rachel for Holy Week”

  1. Excellent team work everyone, I’m enjoying the service, very good & really good effort from you all.
    Thank you
    Wendy

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