Thank you everyone who contributed to the wonderful services and events over Holy Week and Easter. Special thanks to Jacqui for the amazing Middle Eastern meal on Maundy Thursday, the creators of the stations for our Good Friday meditation, and Justin and the choir for incredible music - who will forget the choir singing 'Were you there' in the darkness of the vigil on Saturday night? But can we have a warmer Easter next year....please?
Holy Week & Easter at St Luke's
Easter is one of the busiest periods in the Christian calendar, and St Luke’s will be buzzing with activity over the bank holiday weekend. Events kick off on 28 March, with a Maundy Thursday supper at 8pm. We’ll gather to share a Middle Eastern themed meal together, followed by a short meditation and table communion. This commemorates the ‘last supper’ and sets the tone for the rest of the Easter weekend. Food is provided but there will be an opportunity to contribute toward the meal if you wish. You may also like to bring a bottle.
Good Friday meditations at 12 noon will be a reflective one-hour service, when we’ll be using a series of stations to ponder the question ‘Who is my neighbour?’. ‘Stations’ are artwork or installations created by different members of the congregation, curated by artist and St Luker, Meg Wroe. Expect lots of creativity and variety from our talented friends, to help you in your contemplations.
On Saturday 30 March, we’ll be gathering at 11.15pm for the most dramatic service of the year. The St Luke’s Easter vigil of fire and midnight mass combines darkness, fire and light to meditate on the dark hours after Christ’s death, followed by his glorious rising.
Easter Sunday will include our regular 9.15am quiet service, followed by a family Easter celebration service at 11am, when there will also be activities for the kids.
Finally, on Easter Monday, our resident community choir, Vox Holloway, will be delighting us with a programme of old and new spirituals. The concert celebrates the history of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the first all-black choir in America, made up of former slaves. Proceeds will go to the Not For Sale campaign, which works to end modern slavery and people trafficking. The concert kicks off at 8pm, and tickets cost £12 (£5 concessions). You can find out more about the concert on the Vox Holloway page on this website.
Whether you’re a regular at St Luke’s, an occasional visitor or have never joined us before, we’d be delighted to welcome you to any of our Easter events.
Bishop Adrian at St Luke's
Next Sunday is Palm Sunday. Bishop Adrian, the Bishop of Stepney will be joining us for the service on his first visit to St Luke’s. We have already worked with his wife Gill who organised the Syrian Refugee Children’s project that our children raised money for last month.
Weather permitting we will gather in the church garden at 11am for a Palm Sunday prayer by Bishop Adrian, then process together into the church. The Bishop is a lovely man and we greatly look forward to introducing him to St Luke's and hearing what he has to say.
God Says Yes To Me
This is the poem Martin used for his talk today...
GOD SAYS YES TO ME
by Kaylin Haught
‘I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic and she said yes I asked her if it was okay to be short and she said it sure is I asked her if I could wear nail polish or not wear nail polish and she said honey she calls me that sometimes she said you can do just exactly what you want to Thanks God I said And is it even okay if I don't paragraph my letters Sweetcakes God said who knows where she picked that up what I'm telling you is Yes Yes Yes’
Soul Space
The Gospel Of Gary
The Church has been called ‘the Fifth Gospel’ and sometimes in our services we include an extra Gospel reading – from the Gospel of St Luke’s West Holloway. On Sunday March 3rd we heard a reading from the Gospel of Gary.
‘I work in a supermarket warehouse where I pack food for internet shoppers. I get out of bed about 2.30 am, start my shift at 3.45 and work till 11.30. The warehouse is huge, full of all the domestic goods you can imagine. I wear an AMT on my arm, a machine that tells me what customers have ordered, where to walk to collect it and which conveyor to put it on. If it sends me, say, to Aisle 26 in Zone 4 for the skimmed milk, while I’m there I’ll also collect whatever else the customer has ordered from Zone 4. Then the AMT points me to another aisle for shampoo or mince meat or yoghurt.
If you get through an order quickly, you might have a minute to chat before the managers notice. I work with a very argumentative atheist and a very argumentative Jehovah’s Witness. The atheist is always saying ‘science disproves God’ and the Jehovah’s Witness always disagrees. As I can’t really get away from them I usually end up getting dragged in but I think God made science. What’s the problem? Why can’t God and science co-exist ?
The Jehovah’s Witness says it’s wrong to be gay. The atheist says Church is conformist. I tell them both they should come to St Luke’s where you can be gay and you don’t have to conform. I’m quite happy they know I’m a Christian, I’m not embarrassed about it.
With a proper job, me and Katya can save up for our wedding - now everyone can stop asking us when we’re getting married. We met as students at Chicken Shed Theatre Company and Dave is marrying us at St Luke’s which is good because I first came to church here when I was six weeks old. At St Luke’s there’s ‘Big Gary’, who’s a painter and decorator, and - because people have seen me grow up - there's me, who people call ‘Little Big Gary’. Although Big Gary’s not much bigger than me now.
Ivy, my great aunt, sits on the front row with her friends Sissy and Doreen. They always sit there. They should have a sign which says ‘Reserved’ on it. Ivy‘s been a regular for more than 10 years but she first started coming with her sister Ethel, my Nan. They came to see me in the Nativity Play when I was six, after mum and I’d started coming regularly.
I loved the Nativity Plays and I was upset when I got too old to be in them. I played the Holy Spirit one year. Another year I was Joseph, another year a Big Issue salesman - I think that was a modern version of the Nativity. One year I remember the Virgin Mary gave birth to a rugby ball. That was the year England won the Rugby World Cup. That was another modern version.
I’m 23 now but Nativity plays, crèche and Sunday School are powerful memories for me. That’s how I got to know Wez and Tom and Ben and Kaveh. Kaveh could be pretty pumped up sometimes. He used to watch a lot of wrestling. Maybe he liked to use us as opponents. He left church for a long time, but I love it that he just turned up again a few years ago, as if he’d never been away, and he’s a changed person. He’s a brilliant musician too, I love it when he sits down at the piano after a service.
It worries me watching my Nan getting so frail. She can’t get to church at all now but Ivy makes sure she’s ok. She forgets a lot. She sometimes calls me Colin, my Dad’s name. Although, funnily enough, one thing she never forgets is to talk about our wedding. We’re a 40-minute drive from Holloway these days and some Sundays I go to see my Nan instead of coming to the service. I come down for coffee at the end.
People think of churches as being against things but what I like about St Luke’s is that there are lots of different kinds of people and we don’t judge them if they’re different in some way. You can come here whatever you believe, we will still accept you. Even if you’re not religious, come and have a coffee anyway. Nothing will be forced down your throat, make up your own mind. Katya brought her mother once and even she liked it.
I had trouble with my speech when I was young but doing drama games helped me and it got me interested in acting. I’m always the shy one. In a conversation I feel like I babble on too much. Sometimes - as myself - I don’t have the words to say but when you’re acting you have lines to learn so you always know what to say. Acting was how I found a more confident version of myself. After Performing Arts I studied Media Performance and I’d like to get into radio or TV. I’m a film buff. Some weeks I go to the cinema seven or eight times. I saw the new James Bond four times in a week. If my writing matures I’d like to be a film critic.
Colin, my dad isn’t a churchy person. I’ve always come to church with my mum Carol, although I’ve never asked her about her faith. It’s just what we do. As a kid I wasn’t baptised or christened so before my teens I made the decision to be baptized and confirmed on the same day. Being present at St Luke’s is important for me in feeling closer to God. It might be the bread and wine or a hymn or it might just be talking to people afterwards.
You don’t want to put everything on God because he’s got so much to do but it’s good to know he’s looking out for you, that there’s someone to show us a better way. I believe in a creator who designed us and when things are going bad I look to God for guidance. I see God like an old friend, someone you can turn to for a chat, even though he can’t answer you with words. I feel better for talking to God. It’s like being in a family where you know someone is always looking out for you. You’re in God’s family and God wants the best for you.
I’ve been coming to St Luke’s all my life and now I’m getting married here. It seems right. Maybe if Katya and I have children, they’ll be baptised and confirmed here like me. Maybe they’ll be in the Nativity Play like I was.’
A collection of 12 stories like this from St Luke's can be found in The Gospel According To Everyone.
One-off Performance - This Thursday
016 Mr Darwins Tree
This Thursday (28th February) at 7.30pm, Andy Harrison is performing his one-man play 'The Way' in the side hall at St Luke's. It's a great opportunity to experience this 40 minute monologue which confronts with searing honesty some of the harder questions about the suffering and the struggles integral to the journey of faith and Life. And it's free! So don't miss it.
St Luke's Lent Course
We're hosting five informal evening gatherings on Wednesday in Lent, asking 'Who Is Our Neighbour?' including: Who Is My Neighbour in London ? Who Is My Neighbour In the World? Who Is My Neighbour on My Street?
Each week a different member of our community at St Luke's will lead a short presentation and then we'll share our own experiences.
On our opening night, Wednesday Feb 20th, Kurt Wilson will be asking if the life and organisation of the humble honey bee has lessons for neighbourliness in the communities we share. 'Connection, communication and the spirit of the hive - who is our neighbour.'
We'll meet at 7.45 in the small hall at the side of the church, break for tea and coffee and make time to talk to each other in smaller groups about what's happening in our lives - and how we can support each other.
An Idea For Lent
'You have some money in a savings account earning virtually no interest.You decide instead that you will invest this as a series of micro-loans which will help start-up businesses in the poorest countries. Alice in Liberia needs a loan to buy flour for her bakery. Mohammed in Palestine needs a loan to buy a hoover for his car-washing business. In that savings account earning almost no interest you have £150. Each week in Lent you commit to make a loan of £25 to a different person or community around the world. By the time Lent arrives next year each of those people has repaid your loan. All the money is all back in your account. You have earned no interest on your £150 but you helped Recho in Kenya buy a motorbike and her business selling cereals has taken off. Your Lenten discipline in 2013 was to use your resources to help transform the life of someone you will never meet...'
This is one of the ideas for Lent from a talk by Martin last Sunday. If you're interested in finding out more about this idea, check out Kiva - Loans That Change Lives.
Mr Darwin's Tree
Faith, science and doubt meet as Andy Harrison becomes Charles Darwin - for one night only. Friday. 8pm £5.
Having premiered at Westminster Abbey and toured nationally and at The Edinburgh Festival, Murray Watts' one-man show, 'Mr.Darwin's Tree' featuring Andy Harrison, returns for one night only this Friday in the small hall.
Tickets £5. Running time 75 mins.