Covid-19 Update From St.Peter's 

You may have seen the Archbishops' Statement.

In light of that we are stopping our Sunday Morning Gathered Worship Services and all other gatherings until further notice.

But:

We are not stopping being church.

We are not stopping praying.

We are not stopping our love for this community.

In fact the Church Building will still be open.

Come in for a bit of silence, a bit of space, a bit of prayer.

You are welcome to sit and dwell.

Over the next few days more prayer resources will start to appear as will our plans to support this precous community.

 

You will find prayers and services on our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCovALblyBBYFmTuneLKi7FQ

and on our FaceBook Page: https://www.facebook.com/STPsCringleford

Below are the prayers we are using at this time if you would like to join in:

 

 

Maundy Thursday Reflection

Every day during Holy Week I will share a picture and a very brief reflection on one of the verses set for Evening Prayer.  As it is Maundy Thursday I’m taking a verse from the main service.

Thursday’s is based on  John 13:5 “After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped round him.”

Over the last few weeks one of the things we have got better at as individuals and as a society has been washing – our hands have been scrubbed red raw, we now have ‘Happy Birthday’ floating around in our heads the majority of the day and we are used to almost instinctively washing our hands when we go shopping or even after we have picked up post from the door mat.

The washing of hands has become an intrinsic and universal part of our society – something that everybody does pretty much all the time.  But this foot washing we here of in John chapter 13 was very different.

Now I don’t not how you feel about your feet – maybe you wouldn’t want anyone to go near them.  But the washing of feet in the ancient world was even worse.  The wearing of sandals in a hot, dusty country where you shared the streets with the animals meant that feet by the end of the day were universally grim.  So before an evening meal a slave or a servant would come and wash your feet.  The lowest person in your company would get the lowest job.

Except this time, its Jesus.

He is the one who takes, voluntarily the lowliest job.  He is the one who becomes the servant.  Later on in the passage we see how radical this is – Peter, one of Jesus’ closest followers, loses it with the idea that Jesus should wash his feet.  Yet he cleans up the mess that no one else wants to and then simply says “I have given you an example, that you also should do just what I have done for you”.

Many in our society are doing tasks and jobs for neighbours.  Whether shopping or getting prescriptions or just keeping an eye on each other.  We have those in our NHS and care homes who are used to washing others but now know it comes with an additional risk – yet still do it.  How can we this day show that love of Jesus and so follow the one who elsewhere claimed that he did not come to serve but be served and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).