Welcome to Earley St.Peter's

Welcome to

Earley St.Peter's

Welcome to the St. Peter’s Earley web site. We hope that you will find the site welcoming and easy to use. You will hopefully have found out something of the wide and varied range of services and activities that St. Peter’s offers to our parish and local community. This brief introduction will tell you something of our life and worship together.

St. Peter’s is a Victorian church built in 1844 and has been the centre of worship for its parish from that date. For many the first experience of worship at St. Peter’s will have been a family baptism or christening at the start of their Christian journeying. Other important family occasions will have been celebrated at St. Peter’s, marriages and celebrations of wedding anniversaries, as well as funerals, the saying of a final farewell to those we have loved. St. Peter’s church welcomes all those who live in the parish to come and mark these important occasions in the lives and deaths of their families.

If St. Peter’s commemorates these important events in our lives, it also stands as a symbol of the importance of worship in our lives. The main act of worship each Sunday at 10.00am (except for the 1^st Sunday of the month) is a celebration of the Eucharist, in which we come to together to praise God, to share in fellowship, to pray together and to receive the bread and wine in communion together. The ministerial team (clergy and readers) and a robed choir lead the worship, which seeks to be accessible, welcoming and dignified. At the same time Sunday Seekers (Sunday School) for those of primary school age and Upper Room for those of secondary school age meet in the Church Hall where they share worship and teaching and then join the congregation in church for the closing part of the service. A group for adults also meets in the Scout Hall for a more informal ministry of the word, including bible discussion and prayer and then joining the congregation in church for the sharing of the peace and the rest of the service; this has been, in particular, valued by those who are not yet confirmed and are rediscovering worship.

On the first Sunday of the month we meet for an all age family service called Parish Praise; this is often led by various groups within the parish and is usually shorter in length – about 30 to 40 minutes. At this service the music is accompanied by Jubilate, a group of singers and instrumentalists of all ages. On this Sunday the Eucharist is held in the evening at 6.30pm. Every Sunday morning there is an early celebration of Holy Communion at 8.00am – this is a quieter, more reflective service. On the 2^nd and 4^th Sundays (6.30pm) the evening service is Evensong (from the Book of Common Prayer) and on the 3^rd. Sunday the evening worship uses a wide variety of forms such as worship from Taizé and Iona.

We comprise the wealth of Anglicanism from Spring Harvest to Walsingham; and if you are new to the parish, or wishing to rediscover worship and the Christian faith, you will be very welcome at St. Peter’s. We hope that the web site will give you details of our life together, our various activities for all ages as we seek to worship, care, share and grow together.

Revd. Derek Spears