St Peter in the Forest, E17.

Wednesday evenings, 7-8pm. 23rd July, 27th August, 24th September.

No need to book, donations by QR code in the church.

#E17 #Walthamstow #WalthamForest #meditation #spirituality #spiritualnotreligious

It's an hour of reflection in the Christian tradition, led by Mthr Rachel inside our beautiful forest church. Please bring a yoga mat or something to lie on; and a heart and soul that's open to the Divine.

If you feel your soul might benefit from an hour of peace and stillness, candles and incense, some chanting, meditation and breathwork, and anointing with oil for healing and wholeness, Threshold may be for you.

We'd also love you to join us for our parish lunch at 12.30 after the service- £6.50/adults, £3/12-16s, free for kids. Send us a message so we can put you on the list and buy enough food! 🧀 🍞 🥗 🍓 🍦

It's St Peter's day, the saint our church is named after, and our patronal festival! Come along this Sunday to explore St Peter's qualities and the ways we try to embody these as a church, while we make Rocky Road for Peter the Rock 🪨

Congratulations to our lovely churchwardens re-elected this year, and charged and blessed for the year ahead at a service this evening. ✝️

Happy Pentecost! 🔥🕊️🌬️

This morning in Forest Rocks we celebrated the coming of the Holy Spirit as wind and fire by making and flying kites, and by eating (a lot of!) toasted marshmallows 👌

Also congratulations to Joshua who got baptised 🕯️

We made elder bead rosaries, found Mary/Our Lady themed flowers, and made rosary beads from rose petals (you whizz them into a smoothie, heat over the fire, squash out all the water, then roll the dough into balls to dry!). And we cooked elderflower fritters over the fire. ✝️⚓

Beautiful afternoon at Forest Church celebrating St Mary, who had the courage to be Jesus's mum.

May Forest Church 3pm 18th May. Mary is shown surrounded by silhouettes of flowers on a blue background.

It's Forest Church on Sunday, and we're going to make rosary beads from real roses! 🌹🩵💙

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Bark boat in a tuffspot flood

Man holds paper dove on a string

Caterpillars made of saltdough

Exploring the story of Noah outside in Forest Rocks this morning 🌈

When we say All Welcome, All The Time, we do honestly mean it. We love the family of St Peter's to properly sound like a family, worshipping and doing life together, and need tiny voices to be a part of that 🥰 (happy, loud, cross, squealy, sad- however they come).

We have two Easter gardens in church. One to look at, for people to use for reflection, and one made by the children on Good Friday that is already being well loved and played with by the littles at church 🤗 ✝️⚓

Campfire toasted muffins spread with fresh garlic (three cornered leek) butter. So so goooood.

Five wet felted eggs on a log.

Happy Easter from Forest Church, where we made garlic butter from the three cornered leek in the churchyard 🌱, and spread it on toasted crumpets, and wet felted eggs as a sign of new life 🐣

Such a special worship community. 3pm last Sunday of every month. Join us!

🌸 10am in church for parish Eucharist, with colouring and biscuit Easter gardens to make on the table at the back.

🌸 3pm Forest Church round the firepit to sing, pray, play, and create in nature.

So special to remember the death and resurrection of Jesus around our firepit this Good Friday.

Please do join us to celebrate Easter on Sunday:

🌸 6am round the firepit for storytelling and moving into church for vigil service, followed by breakfast 🍳

Churchyard is looking beautiful.

Easter Forest Church, round the fire pit, Easter Sunday 3pm.

Good Friday activities round the firepit 11-12noon.
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Then we roasted dates (from date palms) over the campfire 🔥 We do love a thematic snack 😋

Chunk of wood with five candles in it

Where the younger members of church stayed outside to saw 🪚 and drill candle stands for mini 'holy week tenebrae'. You light all the candles today, blow one more out each day you light them until it's in darkness on Good Friday, then light them all at Easter.

Priest in red chasuble stands in front of red-fronted altar in a church. There are a lot of homemade hobbydonkeys propped up against it!

In fact we had a veritable stable full of real* donkeys!

We made these brilliant hobbydonkeys before the Palm Sunday procession, and rode on them round the streets to church 🐴

Homemade hobbydonkey and palm cross processing past a church.

Wonderful to have a real* donkey for Palm Sunday today!

We are really looking forward to offering confirmation classes for anyone aged 11 or above, who is interested in exploring this step in their faith.

www.churchofengland.org/life-events/...

Palm Sunday Forest Rocks Join us at the earlier time of 9.30am, outside Peterhouse, where we will make hobbydonkeys and hear the story of Palm Sunday before we head to the firepit for more fun.

Join us at the earlier time of 9.30am outside Peterhouse to make hobbydonkeys (yes, that's hobbyhorses but the donkey version!) and listen to the story of Palm Sunday, before joining the procession to the church where we'll have more Forest Rocks activities round the firepit. Sunday 13th April. ✝️⚓

...ready to hold something beautiful and precious, a church-basket, if you will, full of and holding within us the gift of the Holy Spirit.

We love Creative Sundays. Want to join us next time on the 27th April?

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Hands weaving a raffia basket

A chain of paper dolls

Paper heart baskets

Hands cutting paper dolls

Reflecting on weaving baskets, the basket Moses' mother wove for him, the way Jesus wove his mother and his friend into a new family from the cross, the way God weaves all of us into a family of love and care within his church...

Postcard image of the parish church of St Peter in the Forest, Walthamstow, in early 20th century.

Entries from Walthamstow, St Peter's burial register 1885-1905, showing the burial of Elizabeth Amy Green aged 80, on 26 Sep 1904

Walthamstow's @stpeterintheforest.bsky.social in early 20th cent. Leytonstone resident Elizabeth Amy Green (c1824-1904) was buried at St Peter's on 26 Sep 1904. A volunteer nurse during the Crimean War, her service at Scutari is recorded on her gravestone. Info thanks to Waltham Forest FHS. #WHM2025

Stole making day retreat . Spend a day sewing your own stole within the beautiful surroundings of our forest churchyard. We will provide some sewing machines, some of the fabrics you need, and one of our church members- a sea...

Booking is open now: ticketlab.co.uk/event/id/310... and we'll be in touch nearer the time with advice for what you'll need to bring.

Stole making day retreat . Spend a day sewing your own stole within the beautiful surroundings of our forest churchyard. We will provide some sewing machines, some of the fabrics you need, and one of our church members- a sea...

St Peter in the Forest is a short walk from Wood Street station on the Weaver line, or a longer walk from Snaresbrook on Central (or you can hop on the Weaver for one stop from Walthamstow Central on the Victoria line).