2025 will be a full year.The first four months, January to April, take us through the seasons of Epiphany, Lent, culminating in our Easter celebrations on 20 April.As well as our usual Sunday worship we'll be marking the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday, 5 March, with three special services to cater for the various types of household we support.Prior to Lent starting, we host an Annual PANCAKE OLYMPICS, which is our family event encouraging people to think about the deeper meaning and significance of Pancake Day - as well as having lots of fun with pancakes!There's lots more beside this. Here is a list of the special events we've got coming up:January5th Epiphany All Age ServiceFebruary2nd Christingle Candlemas All Age ServiceMarch2nd Transfiguration Sunday All Age Service4th Pancake Olympics, 4-6pm5th ASH WEDNESDAY (Lent begins)10am BCP Morning Prayer with Litany and Commination 4pm Family Service 7pm Holy Communion with Ashing23rd Annual Parochial Church Meeting, 12.30pm30th Mothering SundayApril6th Passiontide Begins – Service of Service HOLY WEEK13th Palm Sunday17th Maundy Thursday18th Good Friday: 10.30am Family Service; 2pm Hour at the Cross20th Easter Sunday: 6am Dawn Vigil, 7am Service of Light, 8-9.45am Breakfast, 10.30am Celebration 21st Family Event - walk to and picnic at Temple Newsam
St Philip's invites you to come and participate in the joy of Easter through the entire season - not just one day!We've taken a break after Easter for the school break, but from mid-April all our usual activities are back on - check the events page or our Facebook page!We have some exciting SPECIAL EVENTS coming up...Thursday 9 May, 7pm ASCENSION DAY service of Holy Communion.Saturday 18 May, 11-3pm FAMILY FUN DAY and SPRING FAIR, building on last year's massively successful (and sunny!) community event, we're hoping for another great occasion for all the community - activities for children and young people, games, arts and crafts, information about the church, live music, food including our BBQ, spring fair with jumble sale, and a raffle and tombola. We hope this event brings people together and creates new friendships.Sunday 19 May, 10.30am PENTECOST service and INTERNATIONAL MEAL. The day after the Family Fun Day EVERYONE is invited to come and celebrate the birthday of the church. 2,000 years ago the first Christians were formed into the church by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. On that day people from across the world came to follow Jesus - St Philip's is a diverse church and we want to celebrate this! After the joyful service (which you are encouraged to wear RED for) we will gather for an international meal, where people are invited to bring along their favourite national food. This will be a fuddle with a bang! Free to everyone - come for worship, fun and food!Do get in touch if you're interested in these events. All these events have their own page on achurchnearyou
Lent began on Wednesday 14 February, Ash Wednesday - one of the earliest dates for a few years.Lent is a season of preparation for the great Christian Feast of Easter...a preparation that lasts six and half weeks - 40 days (plus Sundays!). This year the three key words are preparation, penitence and vision.Firstly, preparation. In this season we are aiming to prepare our hearts to receive Jesus anew on Easter Sunday morning. We're also preparing the church building. We came together on Saturday 10 February for a Big Clean Up. We're so grateful to all those who came to sweep, dust, mop, empty, polish and tidy. The church has gone through several rounds of decluttering in the last two years - this was another mark of progress.We're going to give over some of our service on 17 March for a similar purpose - cleaning, polishing and preparing the worship space for Holy Week.Lent is also a season of penitence. We want to encourage all Christians to more regular prayer, almsgiving and study of the Bible. One way to do this is to join one of our Connect Groups, but for Lent we've also started a Wednesday act of Worship, at 10am in church - a service of BCP Morning Prayer.Finally, we're giving over time in Lent to sharpen our vision as a church. We've had a Listening service on 25 February where we spent time in small groups discussing the challenges that face our community. We want to be stirred up to serve the actual needs of the people of Osmondthorpe and East End Park. We're coming together again on Saturday 9 March for our VISION DAY. All of this is going to lead to our Annual Meeting on 28 April, where we hope to relaunch our vision strategy and priorities for the coming years.Holy Week and Easter are shaping up to be exciting too:Holy WeekPalm Sunday - Sunday 24 March10.30am - All Age Service of Procession with Palms and Passion Reading (starts outside Festival Foods)Wednesday 27 March10am - Morning Prayer1.30pm - Victoria Academy Easter ServiceMaundy Thursday - Thursday 28 March11am - Chrism Mass at Bradford Cathedral2pm - All Saints Primary School Easter Service7pm - Holy Communion with Feet Washing8-10pm - The Watch: prayers and silence in chapelGood Friday - Friday 29 March10.30am - Family Service with Prayer Stations and Dramatic Reading of Passion2pm - Hour at the CrossEaster Sunday - Sunday 31 March 6am - Dawn Vigil and Service of Light8am - Easter Breakfast10.30am - Easter Celebration with Baptisms
We've a range of services remaining in our Advent season:Christmas Eve - Sunday 24 December10.30am 4th Sunday of Advent - All Age Communion Service4.00pm Nativity - Fancy Dress Nativity Service***11.30pm Midnight Christmas CommunionChristmas Day - Monday 25 December10.30am Christmas Celebration - All Age Communion Service*** - lasts approximately 50 minutes, followed by refreshments in the Vicarage until 12.45pmNew Year's Eve - Sunday 31 December10.30am End of Year Service - All Age CommunionSunday 7 January10.30am All Age Epiphany Service including Chalking Procession****** GREAT for families and children
