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
After the excitement of Easter, you might expect St Philip's to take it easy in the summer months - but no!If you want more regular updates you can subscribe to our weekly mailing by emailing Rolf on revrolfmason@yahoo.com.Here's what we're doing, which you can join in...- Sunday worship - we gather at 10.30am in church or the church hall (follow the flags). We will be in church on the first Sundays: 7th May, 4th June, 2nd July, and 6th August. Our All Age services are usually themed, slightly shorter than normal and with a full worship band.- Connect Groups - as well as church, we encourage all our church members to be part of a small group for ongoing support and friendship. We have three groups, though we're looking to start more. The groups meet on Tuesday 7pm, Wednesday 7pm and Wednesday 8pm. We gather to connect with each other, with God, with the Bible, and consider how to connect with our community.- Community Cafe, every Tuesday, 9.30-11.30am - come along to our free community cafe. We ask for donations only at this warm and welcoming space for food and fellowship. This is in the Church Hall.- Family Brunch, Saturday 4 June, 10.30-12.30pm - come along to the Church Vicarage for our monthly family brunch. We gather together - an ideal place for families with children who are interested in church. We'll meet again on Saturday 1 July before a break for the summer.As well as all this we've other things in the pipeline too:- We hope to launch our Foodbank in the coming months- Re-host the historic Summer Strawberry Teas- Arrange a summer trip to ScarboroughAnd you are always welcome to make contact with Rev. Rolf to discuss personal and faith matters. We're always available to pray with and for you. We're also available for Baptisms, Weddings and Funerals.Aside from all this, we pray. You can join us in a variety of ways:- Tuesday 12pm in the church hall- Thursday 9.30am in the church chapel - entrance through the side vestry door- Sundays 10.30am as part of our weekly worshipAnd here's what you may have missed!- Elections, Thursday 4 May, all day - the church hall wasused as Polling Station for the local elections. We welcomed our newly elected Ward Councillor, Nkele Manaka, to our Coronation Picnic, and the Family Fun Day!- Coronation Picnic, Sunday 7 May, 12-2pm - after our Coronation-themed All Age service we gathered in church for a family picnic. - Ascension Day, Thursday 18 May, 7pm - we worshipped in church with a Service of Holy Communion to celebrate the coronation of Jesus' our king- Family Fun Day and Spring Fair, Saturday 20 May, 10am-2pm - over 300 people came to our brilliant Family Fun Day with Barbecue, Bouncy Castle, Virtual Reality pods, face-painting, Raffle, Tombola, Bacon Sarnies, Splat the Rat, Beat-the-Goalie, and live music. We welcomed many to this sunny event in the grounds of St Philip's, including the ward councillors.- Pentecost, Sunday 28 May, 10.30am - All Age Service of Celebration in Church. Many people wore RED! We celebrated the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the early church.*Phew* We hope this gets you as excited as it does us! Maybe we'll see you at one or more of these events and activities.
