Palm Sunday and Holy Week

This Sunday is Palm Sunday. Mass at 10am starts in the church hall, where palm crosses are distributed and blessed and we hear the Gospel before processing into church. Special service booklets have been printed, and you are welcome to take yours away with you afterwards.

Details of all the services this Holy Week as we prepare to travel with Jesus and celebrate Easter on Sunday are listed here (click on the image to enlarge). Do try and come along to take part in the full story, so together we can truly celebrate the Resurrection!

Where have all the flowers gone?

A timely question as we continue through Lent, without the regular flower arrangements that usually grace the church with their colour, shape and fragrance. Well, we need wait no longer! This Sunday is the Fourth Sunday of Lent and is known as Laetare Sunday or Refreshment Sunday, perhaps better known as Mothering Sunday. Olive and her team have been painstakingly compiling posies of daffodils and foliage to be presented during the 10am Mass. In the church calendar Lenten rules are relaxed and priests have the option to wear rose coloured vestments in place of Lenten violet. The more sombre tone of the season is relaxed and the Latin word laetare, deriving from laetari, invites us to rejoice. This year a visiting drama group brings energy and movement to the day.

Thinking ahead to Easter, why not consider making a donation towards the flowers for the most important part of the year for Christians, (perhaps in memory of a loved one), and help make the church look really beautiful and vibrant during the Easter season?

Oh, and don't forget to buy some flowers or otherwise show appreciation to the important women in your life this Sunday!

Holocaust Memorial Day

Photos of this year's event are now online here (scroll through to pages 3 and 4).

Celebrations!

Looking back at this year's harvest festival, members of the Nigerian community here at St Laurence's took part in leading the service in celebration of 50 years of independence. Starting off in the hall, the procession led into the church:














































and after mass a fine time was had by all in the church hall!




















































Many thanks to John for providing the photos.

Choir trip

You can see some photos from the choir's half term trip to Tuscany here . Some stunning scenery! (The countryside, that is, not the choir ...!). Thanks to Jeremy for sharing his photos.

New Bishop of Southwark

Our Area Bishop (Bishop of Woolwich) has been announced this morning as the new Bishop of Southwark.

I'm sure many of us will have fond memories of his visits to St Laurence's, both on 'Bishop's visitation' and at confirmations.

We wish him well and send him our prayers as he prepares to take up his new appointment.

press release

Coming up

The mornings are beginning to feel really Autumnal now. The daylight hours are shorter and the heating is being serviced. Time perhaps to see what we can look forward to in the next few weeks!

Next Sunday (3 October) we will be celebrating Harvest Festival with a special family mass. Everyone is invited to bring non-perishable food items to be placed at the altar, later to be distributed by LewCAS to asylum seekers who live locally. This year's Harvest Festival will also include a special contribution by the Nigerian community, which will be the first in a series of services where we celebrate the diverse heritage of our congregation. Refreshments will be served in the hall afterwards by the Mothers' Union and the Nigerian community.

Admission to Communion classes start soon, and there will be an introductory meeting for children aged 8 to 13, and their parents, after the Harvest Festival.

Our new mini-choir is starting on Friday afternoons for children aged 4 to 7. Thirty minutes of singing games start at 4pm (doors open at 3.30pm). This is a great opportunity for children who are perhaps too young to join the church choir, and gives them free singing lessons!

The new church lighting is nearly finished, and we are just waiting now for some of the replacement light fittings to arrive. The new lights in the narthex and the ambulatory are already in place and make quite a difference!

And finally .... tickets are now on sale for the annual Autumn Dance on 30 October - 8 till late!