Click link here to see the Flower Festival poster
Summer Friday Lunchtime Concerts
This year the Friends of St.Peter’s will be presenting our lunchtime Concerts. All are welcome and they’re absolutely free!!
Click here for full details and this year’s programme
Notices for this week
Each week, we publish a few pages of notices with times of services and stuff and details of some forthcoming events.
Holy Week and Easter
Christ is risen! He is risen Indeed! Alleluia!
The great Easter proclamation rung around the Church at around 6am on the morning of Easter Day as the light of a beautiful spring day grew outside and we contemplated the new life and hope which is rooted in the resurrection and which Christians are called to proclaim to the world.
This year our observance of Holy week and Easter have been given added poignancy by the presence at the heart of it of the experience of refugees.
Our young people’s group ‘SPY’ created a small ‘refugee camp’, a tent surrounded by the detritus of camp life. added to this we say some lifebelts; we saw some bread and half a bottle of wine. All of it was bounded by wire to keep the refugees firmly in their place and some placards outlined the all too frequent grudging response of the prosperous west to their plight.
The tent in our refugee camp was firmly zipped up; rather like the tomb in which Jesus was buried. Life away from home must feel rather like a sort of death.
Our Good Friday addresses were based on the actual lived experience of the father of a refuge family from Syria who has settled in Poole. He has written movingly of leaving home; being far from home and of longing for home. Click here to read his account.
On Easter Day, as we celebrated the new light of God’s life the tent was opened to reveal some beautiful flowers and lights and a reminder that Jesus himself was a refugee.
It would be very easy to pretend that this means that all is well. Of course its not. There are still millions of refugees in the world and the violence that drives them to leave their homes is still endemic.
However, the work we are doing to support refugees in Poole is a start. It is what we can do here, in our place and now, in our time.
Let us pray for peace; for hospitality and sanctuary, and for an end to fear
New Guidebook to St. Peter’s Church
New Guidebook to St. Peter’s Church Parkstone published by The Friends of St. Peter’s, price £3, (free to ‘Friends)’.
The guidebook has been rewritten with additonal explanatory text and photographs. Available from the Parish Office or in Church.
Lent
Ash Wednesday is on 6 March and we shall be celebrating the Eucharist on that day at 10.45am and 7.30pm. At both services there will be an opportunity to receive the imposition of ashes as a sign of our penitence
Our other Lenten activities include the Lent Course “Daring to see God Now” which will comprise five small group discussion sessions running throughout Lent. We also have two prayer, work and fellowship sessions.
Click here for full details of our Lent activities.
Confirmation 3rd November
Congratulations to Claire Brown, Sharon Palmer and Hannah Stedmon who were Confirmed by the Rt Revd Nicholas Holtam, Bishop of Salisbury at All Saints’ tide. Claire, Sharon and Hannah took part in a marvellous service of Confirmation in Salisbury Cathedral at which their Christian commitment was Confirmed by God and his Church. The following day they received Communion together for the first time here at St.Peter’s. Many congratulations to them. Do continue to pray for them as they set out on their Christian path.
It’s Light Party time again
On 31st October, St Peter’s hosted its second LIGHT PARTY. It was a fun, bright and sparkly event. The church was lit with four enormous UV lights, making white or neon colours glow like beacons. Sparkly fairy lights and neon bunting all helped to make the church look beautiful. The North Porch was lit with illuminated balloons and pumpkins, carved with smiley faces and words such as ‘joy’ and ‘love’. Our welcomer at the door had many a chat to passers-by, telling them about the party and inviting them in.
There was lots on offer for children and grown-ups alike. We made candles, paper lanterns, doves and crowns. There was neon face paint, the doughnut-on-a-string game and a prayer candle. There was delicious party food, tea and cake. We danced and boogied to disco music, had a limbo competition (which the three-year olds won) and played musical statues and musical bumps.
This was a wide-reaching community event which needed input from a variety of different people. So thank you if you loaned your fairly lights, baked cakes, helped put on the craft, threaded doughnuts onto string, decorated the church etc. All these jobs really helped it all come together.
A special thank you to Nick Ellis from Holy Angels Lilliput who donated lights, extension leads and carried out the necessary electric tests.
The Centenary Summer Fayre!
The Centenary St.Peter’s Summer Fayre – 9 June 2018. Great weather, great entertainment and a great day for the whole community
100 cakes for 100 years. Thanks to Jo Scroggie, they were great!
Tea and entertainment too. Time for a bop in the tea tent!
Thanks to our Mayor and Town Crier for opening the Fayre for us