Dear friends,

A very warm welcome to this Palm Sunday service, wherever you are worshipping in the Langtree Team ministry area. We mark the beginning of Holy Week with the commemoration of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, where the crowds acclaimed him as their coming King. When their expectations were not met, they turned on him, and popular support moved later to those who advocated violence as the means to salvation. Not much changes in the middle east, really, does it?

This day reminds us of the centrality of Jerusalem in God’s plans, and we see also in Matthew’s gospel how Jesus’ arrival was the fulfillment of messianic prophecy in the Old Testament. Christ himself knew well enough that betrayal and death awaited him, yet he did not shrink from the task that he understood God to be calling him to undertake.

Our Holy Week services continue on Maundy Thursday with a Team service at St Leonard’s, Woodcote, led by the Revd Linda Smith, at 7.30pm on Thursday 13th. Good Friday and Easter Day services are held around the Team – please see elsewhere on this sheet for full details. There is also the Team website for a full listing.

Your prayers are requested for those planning to be married in our churches throughout the coming summer months, and also for our ministry teams who will be supporting their special days – wardens, welcomers, bellringers, musicians, flower arrangers, vergers, and clergy. We all have an important role in our ministry of welcome, and witness to the eternal nature of the love of God, of which our human love and faithfulness is but a tiny reflection.

Your Rector                                                                        Revd Canon Kevin Davies