Easter 2016

Easter - a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. And it's always such a wonderful moment when we bring the best of spring into church to remind us of the promise of everlasting life.

This year, the inspiration for the side windows and porch came from the Flower Arranger magazine.

The flowers never look much in their buckets, do they? The window arrangements would have yellow tulips with grape hyacinths, and the altar arrangements would be Easter lilies with white tulips. (To ensure the lilies were wide open, they were bought a week early and kept indoors.)

There were four of us arranging in the side windows and porch - we all have the same flowers, we take a window apiece, and we work to create something similar to our inspiration. Every arrangement is therefore unique, but from a distance looks part of a thematic whole. See what I mean? 

The altar window arrangements were done by the fifth team member.

This year, we've also incorporated some decorations made by children at Holywell Primary School and those who came to our Good Friday All-Age service.

We were invited to go to Holywell to share Experience Easter with 60 children in Year 3, and part of that experience was to write their hopes and dreams on small sea pebbles. We dotted a few pebbles around the base of each window arrangement.

The Good Friday service had the theme of new life, and after a short church service, we moved our worship into the woodland we are lucky enough to own. As well as toasting marshmallows, doing a nature hunt using green and brown paint samples, and making crosses, the children were encouraged to bring paper flowers to decorate a bare cross. Here it is in the woods:

It's one of the pre-shaped foam holders that are more frequently used at funerals, packed with dry oasis. The children added their paper flowers to bring it to life;

We wanted to bring this celebratory cross into church, so we tied it to the lecturn and rearranged a few of the blooms to show them off better...

So there you have it...Easter 2016 at St. Mary in Charnwood Church.