An update from Hannah. 9th April 2020
Now Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. On the way, he took the Twelve aside and said to them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!” – Matthew 20:17-19
These words from Matthew’s gospel give us the Holy Week and Easter Story ‘in a nutshell’. Just 3 verses, to tell of the most incredible, wonderful, world-changing event in all of history. I love the simplicity of the gospel writings, and I’ve also come to appreciate their unplumbed depths! I invite you, over the next four days to go deeper into the story, to take your time, and to ask Jesus to accompany you. There’s lots on offer to help you do that:
Daily throughout Holy Week
Thought for the Day
Preachers from across the Headingley Team are working together to provide a Thought For The Day for our churches, to be circulated to email contacts lists and posted on the web and social media. This is set to continue throughout the lock-down.
Maundy Thursday
Before coronavirus we had planned for the Headingley Team churches to join together at All Hallows for a Maundy Thursday Agape Feast. You may like to join Heston and the All Hallows team this evening as they attempt a virtual meal together, talking/eating their way through the Symbols of the Last Supper. If you want to eat along with them, you’ll need: bread/crackers, wine, egg, salt water, horseradish, parsley, sweet chutney, lettuce, lamb/yam. More details at: https://www.facebook.com/allhallows.leeds
Good Friday to Easter Day
Stations of the Cross and Resurrection
From Good Friday to Easter Sunday, Stations of the Cross will be set up around the outside of the church building. Stroll over on your daily exercise and walk with Jesus on his way to the cross and beyond to his empty tomb and resurrection.
Easter Flower Cross
A wooden cross will be at the church gate ready to be decorated. Do come and add your flower to provide a message of hope and resurrection to all who pass by.
Good Friday for families and the young at heart!
Easter Garden Making and the story of Good Friday and Easter day.
I’ll be telling the Easter Story from a children’s bible and making an Easter Garden as we go.
Join in with your kids from 3pm on YouTube and afterwards why not send me photos of your own Easter Garden so I can include them in the Sunday Service.
Easter Day
Dawn Chorus at the Church Steps
The wonderful Claire Pascoe will sing the traditional Easter Proclamation, the Exsultet, from the top of the St Chad’s Church steps as dawn breaks on Easter day. This ancient hymn of triumph and rejoicing marks the end of the emptiness of Holy Saturday and leads into the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection. Light and weather permitting, this will be recorded and posted to YouTube for everyone’s enjoyment!
ABC Church
ABC Church will be meeting on Zoom at 10am. Grateful thanks go to Sarah McWilliam who’s fearlessly continued every Sunday morning in leading ABC Church on Zoom for our church families with pre-school children. This is a lovely way to stay in touch and retain some normality in these strange times. Thank you Sarah!
Easter Service
Join us at 9.30am (or later) on YouTube for a special St Chad’s Easter Service of Prayer and Praise. For all our services just search ‘YouTube Hannah Lievesley’. Subscribe to the channel to by clicking on the ‘Subscribe’ button to ensure you don’t miss future services and videos.
Take Part!
I know everyone’s missing each other, and Easter is a time of celebrating together as a church, so I’d love to include in the Easter service a video montage of Easter Greetings from as many of us as possible. To that end I’m asking everyone, (yes, you included!) to send me a 3-second video of you/your household shouting ‘Happy Easter!’ Into the camera. This can be as silly or as sensible as you like. Feel free to dress up, wave daffodils, blow party blowers, or just wave serenely like the queen. Just send me something of yourselves. We can cut out the bits where you’re turning the camera on and off so don’t worry about that! It would be amazing to fill 3 minutes with Easter greetings – that would need 60 video clips, so please do join in to make it happen. It will be lovely to see your smiley faces on Easter Day. Please send clips to me via email by Saturday 2pm.
Worship across the team, diocese, and BBC.
St Michael’s and All Hallows services can be accessed via their Facebook pages at: https://www.facebook.com/headingleychurch/?rf=136371809719186 and https://www.facebook.com/allhallows.leeds/
For two-minute video reflections from Bishop Nick throughout Holy Week go to: https://www.leeds.anglican.org/
For listings of Church of England TV and Radio services go to: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnds
You can listen every week to Sunday Worship on Radio 4 at 8.10am
Golden Giving – you can now donate to church on-line!
With the Parish Centre closed, and no rental income or Sunday worship collections we are very concerned about the financial situation of the church this year. Our wonderful treasurer, Michael Clark, has been busy setting up a method for donating to church on-line. As you can imagine, we are more grateful than ever for your donations. If you’d like to contribute to the running and upkeep of St Chad’s Church with a one-off donation or standing order, we’d be very grateful. Go to the St Chad’s website, https://stchads.co.uk , scroll to the bottom of the page, click on the Golden Giving logo, and just follow the instructions there.
School families support – Thank you!
Thank you for your extremely generous donations of food, funds, and energy to help the handful of St Chad’s Primary School families who were in urgent need of additional support. They have been so grateful for this timely support which plugged a gap in the funding available from Government and school and provided much needed reassurance. Going forward the families will receive weekly food vouchers and our funds raised to date will be enough to support this, so the fund has now closed. Grateful thanks to all who made it possible to help these families in their hour of need.
What’s isolation like for you? Have your say in the Spoken Herd.
Our very own – Sam Harding has begun a journaling project to gather the experiences of people in isolation during the COVID-19 lock-down. He’d love to hear from the church community. If you can help him by offering your story and perspective do get in touch. You can see what he’s already written at his facebook page. If you’d like to take part message him there or let me know and I’ll put you in touch. https://www.facebook.com/Spoken-Herd-101603514840203/
WhatsApp Bible at bedtime.
The WhatsApp groups for Fireworks, Sparklers and ABC Church families have been buzzing during the lockdown. How about letting the groups virtually into your living room with a video of a bible story read by you or your family? Each video could begin. “Hello from…” and everyone in your family could say hello, and then perhaps a word about your day. Something as simple and silly as the Fast Show updates from Jesse would be enough (Example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-z5T8meC84). Then ,“Our story tonight is…..”. Go on, you know you want to!
Stay in touch.
Staying in touch over the weeks to come will be more important than ever. Do keep calling each other and taking time to chat on the phone, especially with those who don’t have family close by. To keep up to date with all that’s happening through church, ‘Like’, ‘Follow’ and ‘Subscribe’ to our Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channels and visit our website regularly. Do let me know of anyone you think is not on our contacts list, or who might appreciate a phone call. Do also keep your prayer requests coming – I’m including these in my daily prayers and would love to pray for the specific needs of you and you’re loved ones at this time.
May God be with you in this special week, to protect, inspire, and draw you closer to Himself.
With love in Christ, from Hannah.
With love in Christ,
Hannah.
Vicar, St Chad’s Church
0113 2103497