Tag Archives: Church Langton

Worship for New Year 2025

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We look forward to the next of the church winter seasons, called Epiphany, which follows Christmas. A little background to the seasons and festivals follows below the worship pattern.

Services at St Peter’s Church Langton, St Andrew’s Tur Langton and St Leonard’s, Thorpe Langton

JANUARY AND FEBRUARY SERVICES

JANUARY
5th No Service
12th 10.30am Church Langton Holy Communion, Martin Hathaway
12th 4.30pm Tur Langton Family Service Jonathan Dowman
19th 10.30am Tur Langton All Age Worship Maxine Johnson
26th 10.30am Church Langton Holy Communion, Martin Hathaway

FEBRUARY
2nd 6.00pm Thorpe Langton Holy Communion, Candlemas Martin Hathaway
9th 4.30pm Tur Langton Family Service, Jonathan Dowman
9th 10.30am Church Langton Holy Communion, Martin Hathaway
16th 10.30am Tur Langton Holy Communion, Martin Hathaway
23rd 10.30am Church Langton Holy Communion, Martin Hathaway

Download Service Grid

We hope you can join us for these services but also wish our friends and followers here who live further away, a very peaceful, prosperous and healthy 2025.

The Church Winter Seasons and Festivals

Background INFORMATION

Christmas follows Advent and is the season that begins on December 25th. 

Twelfth Days The 12 days between Christmas Day and January 5th, also known as Epiphany Eve. Shakespeare’s play, ‘Twelfth Night Or What You Will’ celebrates this special evening and last day of Christmas. Shakespeare wrote the play as a Twelfth Night entertainment around 1601–1602.

Epiphany The feast of Epiphany is celebrated on January 6th, and is also known as “Three Kings’ Day”. Many countries, including Spain, Italy and Mexico, celebrate the giving of Christmas gifts on King’s Day, (El Día de los Reyes) in recognition of the time when the Wise Men traveled from the East and brought gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh.

Woolly Nativity of St Peter's Church, shows the knitted figures of the Christmas story against a painted backdrop with the animals in the stable and views beyond to Bethlehem and the Star of the East
Woolly Nativity of St Peter’s Church

Our Nativity scene in St Peter’s see us bring the Wise Men inside the stable on that day. Until then, they are outside, traveling and following the Star.

The season of Epiphany continues with the Sundays of Epiphany, and ends with the Feast of the Presentation (Candlemas) on 2nd February.

Candlemas is traditionally the 40th day of (and the conclusion of) the Christmas/Epiphany season. Candlemas is celebrated on 2 February to commemorate the purification of the Virgin Mary (after childbirth, according to Jewish law) and the presentation of Christ in the Temple. Candles are traditionally blessed at this festival, hence the name.

After these seasons, the church changes to Ordinary Time, until the season of Lent.

Thank you 🙏

A beautiful start to Christmas

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St Peter’s Carol Service

Thanks to everyone who came to the Carol Service last night. So lovely to see so many of you!

The flower team have surpassed themselves and the Nativities (we have two!)! are both out on display.

The knitted version and traditional ceramic figures are in their stables but you’ll notice that baby Jesus hasn’t arrived just yet and the Wise Men are waiting in the wings.

Woolly Nativity
The Traditional Nativity


Thank you to Rev Martin and Maxine Johnson for devising a lovely service of familiar Bible readings, more recent reflections and prayers.

So many favourite carols highlighted the words and thanks as always to Keith Folwell for playing the piano.

Thanks to all the readers, and the team, for mince pies, mulled wine and tea and coffee to finish.

It was lovely to see everyone and our thanks go to everyone who generously donated to our Christmas Appeal supporting the Al Shurooq School in Bethlehem. (See our post yesterday).

The appeal runs in church and online over Christmas until 5th January, so we’ll keep you posted with the amount raised.

Donate here

Finally some more photos of the decorations in church.

Arocha UK Awards Bronze Eco to St Peter’s Church Langton

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Smiles were all around when a certain email popped into our in box recently. What is it all about? You might well ask! St Peter’s now qualifies as a Bronze Eco Church. After filling in questionnaires on the Arocha UK website, we discussed our care for the churchyard, the flowers and the creatures that inhabit it, as well as the care for our building and our hopes for its future use by our community. We applied to Arocha Uk and were delighted to receive our Bronze Eco Award. We made promises to help protect God’s Earth and its creatures from extinction by reducing pollution, landfill and food waste. This promise applies to St Peter’s Church building and churchyard but also to us as individual members of the church community.

Join us on our Eco Journey

There are a number of initiatives we aim to support at the start of our Eco journey. The churchyard is already a haven to wildlife, (see the example below) but we want to install bug houses and bird boxes and hedgehog houses go encourage more. Can you help us make them or install them? If so, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us here by email or reply to this post on our Facebook Page.

See below, just one example of the extraordinary natural habitat found in the churchyard. These tiny fungi form an almost magical landscape and appear in the autumn.

Photo of tiny fungi mushrooms looking like a magical village for woodland sprites and fairies.
The fairy village – tiny fungi growing in St Peter’s Church yard

Just One Thing

We pray to encourage our community to join us in pledging to do “JUST ONE THING” however small to help restore the Earth’s balance. Lifestyle Change does not have to be massive it can be as small as not using paper handkerchiefs, reducing the use of cling film and single use plastic such as bottled water or it could be to set the washing machine to a lower temperature.

Could you think about making a pledge and letting us know? We’d love to hear what you and your family have decided to change in your household. Every step we all take, however small, makes a huge difference.

Fair Trade Produce

The use of Fair Trade produce is so important to ensure that farmers in third world countries have a fair salary and have good working conditions. Would you consider buying Fair Trade produce for your pledge? We want to promote the use of Fair Trade produce in St Peter’s especially during our much-loved Cream Tea Sundays.

PHoto shows a white tea pot and milk jug with a plate of jam, scones and butter on a white tray
Time for tea!

What is YOUR Carbon Footprint?

Finally, one last thought to ponder is to check your own carbon footprint on the website CreationCare.org.uk where you can get your own personalised carbon footprint number. Use this number to update every six months or whenever you have time. What a great thing to do with your children and grandchildren by introducing them to carry on the legacy of caring for God’s Earth.

Visit St Peter’s church and churchyard

St Peter’s is open every day for contemplation and quiet prayer. It welcomes you for those moments when you need a quiet space to get away from the pressures of everyday life or just for somewhere to sit for a while. St Peter’s is always there for all.

Creation is given as a gift to us all and we share responsibility to protect and nurture it.

Alison Thurlby PCC member
Echo family at St Peter’s Church Langton
Feel free to send us pictures on St Peter’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/stpeterschurchlangton