Good Friday in the Village Church

We celebrated Good Friday this morning at our village church. It was a family event, so there were crafts and an Easter garden followed by a short family service and at the end an egg hunt. Our village church shares a rector with several others, so people came from our village of Naunton as well as the neighboring villages. We met lots of new people, all of whom were very friendly and welcoming, and we ate our first ever hot cross buns!

First we all gathered in the church and the kids enjoyed various crafts and hot cross buns while the adults supervised (and also enjoyed hot cross buns). I volunteered to help with a craft so I brought the supplies we had leftover from our Valentine's craft and the kids painted salt dough candle holders (this time in Easter shapes.) I didn't take a photo of the table we set up in the church because they proved very popular so I was kept busy manning the table. But here's a photo of the ones my kids painted (and one by my mom.)

Other crafts included the beautiful paper flowers you see above, as well as air-dry clay crosses that could be decorated with buttons, pipe cleaner crowns of thorns, coloring pages, and sticker eggs. The kids used some of the paper flowers to decorate a large wooden cross made from tree branches, to symbolize the hope of Easter. Yes, I should have taken a picture of this.

After crafts, the kids gathered to make an Easter garden, with a tomb of stones surrounded by soil and flowers. Come Easter morning the rector will roll the stone back to symbolize Christ's resurrection. Rebecca helped, and I snapped a blurry picture of her back (she's in pink next to the older girl with a bow in her hair):

The final garden turned out beautifully:

We plan to pop into the church later this weekend to see it with the door of the tomb rolled back. (Actually, the kids mostly want to go back to hunt for any unfound chocolate eggs that might be lingering around from the egg hunt...)

After that the rector Katrina gave a short family-friendly Good Friday service, and handed out cross-shaped balloons. It was very different from our usual church services, partly of course because it was an Anglican service, and partly because it was kid-focused. She had kids come up to tell the Easter story by organizing pictures, and then we sang some kid-friendly songs and had a brief prayer. As a consequence, much less liturgical than other Anglican services I've attended in the past. (Well, to be fair, this was my first officially Anglican service, as I've only been to Episcopalian services in America.)

Here we are getting settled in for the service in our beautiful old church. This building makes me want to go to church here more regularly! It's so pretty! Sorry for the less-than-pretty photography. I was only remembering last minute to snap photos here and there because I was busy at the painting table, talking with people, and soaking it all in.

After the service they hid chocolate Easter eggs all over and the kids went hunting. I suspect there are still some left, which is why my kids are eager to go back in a day or two. Maybe at village coffee next week they can comb over the whole place...

We walked back home after that, and it started to rain just as we got to our front door.

Oh, and I thought these daffodils in the church yard were pretty:

Easter and spring are actually coming, even if it's been cold and rainy. The daffodils prove it. But now I'm going to go warm up by our radiator!