Celebrating Easter

Our young people took a major role in a packed main Easter Morning Service yesterday. The service was led by our youth worker, Lou McGoldrick. There were young people in the music group. The Bible readings used a video recording, and one of the young people gave the talk, pre-recorded on video.

There was an Easter egg hunt for the children, within the church, where each plastic egg contained a word which together made up a verse. For the prayers, everyone made a paper dart and put a prayer need on it. When the dart was thrown, someone else picked it up and prayed for the original person’s prayer request. This was repeated three times.

The service concluded with Holy Communion, using the shortest and most responsive communion prayer.

It was a time of great celebration, which makes all the sadder, the attacks on Christians around the world, who have also been celebrating Easter. Our hearts go out to the family of the Muslim shopkeeper who was killed, apparently, for wishing his Christian customers a happy Easter.

The news that Jesus Christ is not dead, but is indeed risen, is a cause of great joy.

Very Early in the Morning on the First Day of the Week.. .

On that first Easter Sunday, the women of Jesus’ group went to his grave early in the morning, to prepare his body – only to find that he wasn’t there, he was risen. To celebrate this, St Paul’s organised a service on the mound in Brock’s Hill Park at 6:30 a.m (it felt even earlier as the clocks had gone forward that night). They were joined by people from two other churches. Despite gloomy weather forecasts, the sky was clear.

The service started with a hymn reminding us of Good Friday and Christ’s death. There were monologues presenting the thoughts of four disciples, all discouraged or despondent in different ways. Then we read the Bible’s account of the resurrection, sang the hymn “Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia” and lit a candle (with difficulty in the wind!). Another four monologues portrayed the complete change in those same disciples that the resurrection made.

As we made our way back to the car park the sun was coming through the trees. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

He Died to Set Us Free

Although not even a holiday in the East Midlands, Good Friday is a major day of remembrance for Christians. It was then that Jesus voluntarily submitted to crucifixion, the most horrendous of deaths, bearing the sin of the world, to open the possibility of peace with God.

As many people have to work, the Churches Together in Oadby organised a single united service at 10 a.m. on Good Friday morning at Trinity Methodist Church. As well as the opportunity for prayer, praise and worship, the drama group gave a powerful presentation of the events of the first Good Friday. This was followed by tea and coffee and hot cross buns.

In the evening, at St Paul’s, we had a service of reflection. Apart from hymns, prayers and readings, there were also a number of stations which the congregation visited during the service. This gave opportunity for meditation as the stations included not only verses and poems but also physical reminders (hammer, nails and candles) and sensory reminders – the taste of vinegar and the smell of myrrh.

May we never forget the cost of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

Our Post-Easter Programme

Our vicar, Steve Bailey writes:

Happy Easter!

In April at our All Together service we launch a new series looking at Men & Women of Faith. Each month will give us an opportunity to focus on a Bible character and hear their story.

 On the other Sunday’s we will be working our way through Galatians. Then at the end of June we begin a series called "Just 10" looking at the Ten Commandments, counting down from 10-1!

On the 2nd July we look forward to Gillian being ordained Priest and then taking her first service of Holy Communion on Sunday 3rd July.

Every Blessing,

Steve

Service details

A Palm Sunday Donkey Procession!

To celebrate Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, Churches Together in Oadby, including St Paul’s, organised a procession with two donkeys. It was a reminder of how Jesus entered Jerusalem as the promised Messiah and received people’s praises – with shouts of “Hosanna!”

People (and two donkeys gathered at St Peter’s Church, where people made paper palm branches and saw a video recording the original events. The procession, singing: “wave your branches, Jesus is here” made its way through the streets of Oadby to The Parade, where the scriptural account was read,  and on to Trinity Methodist Church.

Within the Methodist Church there was a time of activity, fun and refreshments. Hopefully, this was a time of great fun, with a serious meaning that will be remembered by all the young people taking part, and their elders as well.

Palm Sunday

This Palm Sunday Churches Together in Oadby is organising a joint Messy Church with a live Donkey Parade!
Meet at St Peter's at 2.50pm to make palm branches. Donkey parade at 3.30pm to Trinity Methodist's for more craft, games, fun activities, food & celebration.
A great chance to hear and experience some of the Palm Sunday story, do join us!

Ignite

Check out our Youth blog https://stpaulsyouthoadby.wordpress.com/ to read all about what happened at Sunday's Ignite and to see some great photo's. It was really exciting to see the young people engage with God in such a positive way. Many thanks to our fab Youth Worker Lou and her team for all their work.

Lent Lunch at St Paul’s

It has been a long-standing tradition that on the Saturdays in Lent each of the member churches of Churches Together in Oadby (CTO) put on a Lent Lunch, to which the other churches are invited. This is a simple lunch of soup, rolls, cheese and a drink of coffee or tea. All the profits are sent to Christian Aid.

This Saturday it was the turn of St Paul’s to organise the Lent lunch. Our thanks go to everyone who helped prepare the delicious choice of soups and the rest of the food. It was a good time to renew friendships.

 Our prayer is that the profits may help those who never know the choice of food that we take as normal.

African International Christian Ministry

One of our members, Kate Potter, is a trustee of a small charity “African International Christian Ministry (AICM).” This is the charity on which St Paul’s will be focusing its thoughts and prayers this month. At Sunday Morning’s Service, Kate introduced its work to the congregation. It is based on the small provincial town of Kabale, in the south-west corner of Uganda, close to the borders with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

It works among the Batwa, the Pygmy people (which are found in all those countries and in Burundi). The Batwa tend to be isolated from society by the other ethnic groups and scorned by them. They tend to have had few opportunities for education, are very poor and suffer from ill-health. Their plight has been made worse in Uganda as the government has removed them from many of their traditional locations, to make way for the tourism associated with the mountain gorillas in the Forest of the National Park.

AICM has been involved in development and education work with the Batwa, but unfortunately severe storms have badly damaged many of the schools.

Let’s pray and give for this work, which would have so delighted Jesus, as expressed his concern for the poor.

Mothering Sunday

Sunday 6 March was Mothering Sunday. At our All Age Worship, one of the younger members read the passage from St John’s Gospel where Jesus asked John to care for his mother and vice versa. This was also the theme of the sermon, in which our vicar, Steve, reminded us of the great love of Christ, particularly in his care for his mother. He challenged us to show that same love in our relations, particularly within our families, between parents and children and children and parents.

Our prayers were led by a mother with her children and all the ladies in the congregation received a Primula.

How thankful we are for the love of our mothers, whether alive or now dead.

Quote

Here is a great quote from Pope Francis...

"I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security"

St Paul's vision statement is to be 'A church for all ages, backgrounds, cultures and nationalities, growing and following Jesus.' We are a church for all people, you are very welcome to come and join us.

World Book Day

Today is World Book Day and children up and down the land have gone to school dressed up as their favourite book character.

Here is a picture of my favourite book, The Bible. I will never forget the image I was shown as a child of the Bible as a big book but when you opened it up it was like a bookcase with 66 different books inside it. There is a whole variety of different types of literature in the Bible.

 

 

Sometimes it can seem daunting to pick it up and read. Bible notes are a great aid to help you understand what you are reading. This year I am trying to read the whole Bible in a Year using an app which offers a selection of readings with a commentary and prayers.

 

The Bible is the best selling book of all time. Can I encourage you to read it today on World Book Day? I pray that it will speak to you.

Ignite - 13th March 7pm

The theme this time looks at some of the heavy burdens we carry in life; stress, doubts, disappointments, hurts, anxieties, fears, bitterness, regrets and insecurities. Easter teaches us that we are loved more than we can ever imagine. Jesus offers to carry those heavy and life crushing burdens that weigh us down both day to day and forever.

Ignite is a worship space for young people and young adults to connect and explore God and faith through worship music, creative and reflective activities for all the different senses to make things practical, personal and real, there's also videos, a short talk by Lou, real life stories and lots of pudding!
All welcome whether you have a faith or not, you don't have to know lots or have a certain view. It's a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere and our aim is to explore faith and Jesus together with love, respect and open hearts.