Churches unite for Easter week services

A WEEK of special services is planned to mark the Easter period at churches in Barwell.

The Grade I listed parish church of St Mary’s, which has been used as a place of worship for more than 800 years, and Barwell Methodist Church on Chapel Street, will be hosting services, reflections and celebrations to mark the most important moments in the Christian calendar.

St Mary’s Church member Colin Sewell said: “Easter is the most important celebration time in the Church calendar.

“This is because on Good Friday Jesus was crucified and on Easter Sunday he rose from the dead, thus showing us the way to eternal life.”

The week before Easter is known as Holy Week and on Tuesday and Wednesday, March 27 and 28, the church will host services of compline (night prayers) at 7.30pm.

On Thursday March 29, known as Maundy Thursday, a service will be held at Barwell Methodist Church in Chapel Street, also at 7.30pm.

Good Friday, March 30 will begin with an hour of children’s activities at the Methodist Church from 9.30am until 10.30am.

A family procession will then make its way to the parish church for a hot cross bun service at 11am.

Later in the evening, at 7.30pm St Mary’s will host a stations of the cross service which will reflect on the biblical accounts of the final hours of Jesus’s life and his death on the cross.

There will be celebrations at St Mary’s on Sunday with traditional communion services at 8am and 10.45am and a special Easter Sunday service at 6pm.

All the services are open to anyone wishing to attend.