St. Mary the Virgin, Wivenhoe
Sunday Club is for children 5 – 12 years of age.
There is a special club house for it. First, we meet at 10.30 at St Mary's church and then we leave for 45 minutes of art and crafts, story telling and fun.
We return to St Mary's in time to say the Lord's Prayer together with all the other people.
Sunday Club is free and everyone is welcome! We hope you will join us.
Sunday Club happens every week except on the first Sunday of the month, which is when we have All Age Worship. This is when people of all ages stay together in church for the service.
21 February is Shrove Tuesday which is the proper name for Pancake Day. Many people bake pancakes on that day. This is because this Tuesday is very close to the time we call Lent and in Lent Christians traditionally fast - which means they stop eating certain rich foods.
Baking pancakes just before Lent starts means that you can use up things like butter, eggs and cream so that they won't go off during the forty days of Lent
Nowadays not so many people fast. Instead, they give up eating things they really like, such as chocolates or biscuits. Why do they do this?
Lent officially begins on this day. This year it is on 22 February and it lasts until Easter.
It is the time when Christians think about what was going to happen to Jesus: how He would die on the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of all people, to make things right again between God and the world God had created.
Do you remember the Advent calendar, and how it told the story of how people kept on doing wrong things and spoiling God's beautiful creation?
When Jesus died on the cross it was to pay for all those wrongs. There is a beautiful word for that: Atonement.
If you split the word up in an unusual way you get at-one-ment; you can see how that means that God and his people are 'at one' again, meaning that sins have been forgiven once and for all.
So people fast because it helps them to think about these things and to remember that their sins are forgiven because of Jesus' sacrifice. Everytime you stop yourself from having a chocolate or sweet you will remember the reason for not having it. This is how we prepare for the glorious feast of Easter that is coming next
