Dear Sisters and Brothers

I hope that this continues to find you well, I know that a growing number of the St. Luke’s family have contracted Covid19, some mildly but a few have had it quite severely. We are praying for those that we are aware of, as well as NHS staff and other key workers at our regular morning prayer each day.Our support groups are active and sharing concerns for prayer, however please email [email protected] with any requests to be prayed for during this service.

I would like to thank you for the kind words of encouragement you have shared with me concerning our Sunday services. Jacob, Kate, Sophie and I are on a steep learning curve and your reflections and feedback is most welcome. It is wonderful that we have such a talented team able to ensure that a service is streamed each week. The time that our technical team need to put in to producing a stream is large and so the decision was taken not to live stream our service but to stream ‘as live’. I hope this will not impact the way you receive the service - it does mean that we are able to include many more from the St. Luke’s family in the service (by way of prayers, readings, talk and music).

This Sunday is Palm Sunday - the beginning of Holy Week. I invite you to have a palm (whether real or made by the family) or greenery to hand from your garden or the park (if from the park not a big branch!!!) or your window box - these will be blessed during our service. I will also bless a number of palm crosses as I know that for some of us these are important - they will be available in church when next we are able to gather.

As with all our streamed services, this week you will be invited to join in our communion - please do have some bread (or equivalent) with you as well as wine (or juice) and eat these as we do in church. The words will be on screen please do join me in saying these if you would like to.

You will see from this link that our services this Holy Week will be different than in previous years.

Maundy Thursday

I suggest that on Thursday as you have your evening meal you read one of the accounts of the last supper (perhaps Luke 22:14-20). At 9.00pm I will host a Zoom meeting where we can spend time together as Jesus did with his disciples (Luke 22:39 onwards) - we will read from John’s Gospel and the Psalms with some poems on the quarter hour until midnight.

Good Friday

A small group have been creating this Lent - though their art will not be in church they will display their work virtually on our website. I will also host a Zoom reading of the Passion from 2-3 pm.

Easter Sunday

We will join together via the regular stream to celebrate together Easter at 11am.

As we walk this week with Jesus May we all come closer to him and to each other.

Every blessing

John