St Mary's Parish Church

Welcome to St Mary’s Parish Church web site. The site contains information abut the church and community, services, history, photographs and news. Woodkirk Parish is very large and contains Woodkirk, West Ardsley and Tingley.

You can also find ways to support the church and it’s work in Woodkirk. One easy way is to access Amazon through this web site. St Mary’s will receive a referral fee for any purchase made if you access Amazon using the Search box on the right. Thank you for your support.

Many thanks for all who supported the Garden Party yesterday. We had a great day, with very pleasant weather again.

On the day we made about £1000 which was a very good effort.

Thank you to all who volunteered to help on stalls, set up on Friday evening and Saturday, and who helped to put everything away again.

Apologies for the lack of web site over the last few days. This was due to database issues at our web site host which obviously took them ages to mend!

Hopefully normal service is resumed!

At our All Age Communion service for Trinity Sunday this morning, we were very fortunate to welcome Peta Moffat who is the Mara Link Officer for Wakefield Diocese. She recently visited our link parish of Ikizu in Tanzania.

Peta spoke about her journey to Ikizu, the situation the Anglican Church finds itself in in this area of Tanzania, and about the people and location of the church.

These are photos taken by Peta during her visit and were shown during the service.

The previous week, we raised through a bucket collection, enough to buy a large Bible in the people of Ikizu’s own language and a large wooden cross. These will be really important to the church who have to rent a ‘classroom’ in a teachers’ building, and hence does not seem very church-like.

The Pastor and his family

Childrens' Choir

Pastor and other church members

Peta and a child from Ikizu

An older man comes in to be baptised

To celebrate the arrival of our new organ, we will be holding an Opening Recital on Saturday 5th June at 7.30pm.

The recital will be by Mr Colin Porter who is Organist and Choirmaster at Mossley Hill Parish Church in Liverpool. He has been organist and choirmaster there for over 24 years and is also Director of the Liverpool Festival Choir.

The recital will last for about 50 minutes, and will ‘show-off’ the capabilities of our new organ.

Please encourage family and friends to join us for this memorable evening in the life of St Mary’s.

Admission is free and refreshments (wine, soft drinks and nibbles) will be available. For more information, contact Neal Pinder-Packard, Churchwarden, on (0113) 252 4001.

Colin Porter at the console of the organ of Mossley Hill Church, Liverpool (photo from Mossley Hill Church web site

At the 10.30 service this morning we celebrated our new organ. We were delighted to welcome the Lord Mayor of Leeds, Judith Elliott to join in the celebrations with us. As well as using the organ for our worship and hymns, a very rousing singing of Jerusalem concluded the service. 

Afterwards, the Lord Mayor decided to have a go at the organ with John Hardcastle our organist: 

Lord Mayor, Judith Elliott, with organist John Hardcastle

Our brand new organ is now in place and has had it’s first service! The brightness and variety was a joy to hear and should provide great music for years to come.

We would like to invite everybody to a special service on Sunday 2nd May 2010 at 10.30am to celebrate the new organ. We are delighted that the Lord Mayor of Leeds, Judith Elliott, is able to join us.

Sunday 28th March – Palm Sunday

10.30am Holy communion (Sung) & Gro-zone in Parish Centre
5-6.30pm Wannabees Youth Group at Vicarage

Monday 29th and Tuesday 30th

7.30pm Compline (Short reflective service for Holy Week)

Wednesday 31st March

9.30am Hill-Top Easter Service in church
7.15pm Prayer meeting in church
8.00pm Holy Communion (One World Setting)

Thursday 1st April – Maundy Thursday

10.30am Chrism Eucharist at Wakefield Cathedral
11.00am Holy Communion at Soothill Manor
7.30pm Passover meal in Parish Centre
9-10.00pm Church open for quiet prayer

Friday 2nd April – Good Friday

12noon – 3.00pm ‘At the foot of the cross’ – reflections on the final hours of Jesus’ life (Followed by refreshments in the Vicarage)

Saturday 3rd April

8.30pm Easter Eve short reflective service in church

Sunday 4th April – Easter Sunday

8.00am Holy Communion
10.30am All-Age Communion for Easter

The Faculty required to purchase the new organ was approved this week after there were no objections.

We are pleased to announce that we have now been able to order the organ.

We will keep you updated of progress, but expect the organ to be fitted by the end of April!

Last year we received a gift of an altar cloth. An extremely generous gift as our link Parish in the Diocese of Mara, Ikizu, do not have a church. They are currently making their own bricks in order to make a church to worship in. With the long seasons of advent, Christmas and Epiphany, today was the first time we were able to use the cloth. I’m sure you’ll agree that it looks beautiful!

This year, the Lent course will be held on Tuesdays from 23rd February to 23rd March. There are two sessions on each Tuesday, one in the afternoon and one in the evening.

The course is for everyone, no matter how far in your journey as a Christian, you will get something out of the course. The groups are supportive and you will be made most welcome. Sign up on the list in the porch or contact the Vicar.

We will be using a book to support the course. You can buy it in advance from Amazon using the the link below.