Love overwhelmed hate and crushed fear

They were knitted angels, each of which came with an invitation to join us at church, and a message about the true meaning of Easter.

The congregations of St Thomas a Becket, Warblington, and St James’ Church, Emsworth, were challenged to knit angels for Lent that would then be distributed around the town for Easter.

This was a joint venture with Emsworth Methodist Church which we hoped could make a really big impact.

We hoped that each church would be able to knit 200 angels.

Both churches organised ‘knit and natter’ groups and encouraged their members to knit them at home as well.

It really caught people’s imaginations and so by the time Easter came, we had managed to knit far more than our original target of 400 – we had about 550.

Each angel was given a label asking people to take them home, and an Easter message that said ‘Easter is when love overwhelmed hate and hope crushed fear’.

Once they were all ready, an intrepid band of members from both churches set out at 6.30am on Maundy Thursday to place them around the various public areas of the town.

It wasn’t a secret for very long, as some of the angels were taken home by townspeople even before they had all been placed.

By Thursday afternoon, most had been taken.

We had hoped that they would be fun to find and from the reaction on Facebook, it would seem that they were.

Even if people didn’t come to church as a result, we hope it was fun finding them and that they will prompt some people to think more deeply of what Easter is really all about.

Our churches really rose to the challenge.

It was a great team effort and from comments made by the groups that knitted them and the distribution team itself, it was great fun for us too.

Now we are thinking about what we might do next.

n ST THOMAS A BECKET CHURCH is in Church Lane, Warblington,PO9 2TU.

ST JAMES CHURCH is in Church Path, Emsworth, PO10 7DP.

To contact Rev Price call 01243 372428 or go to warblingtonwithemsworth.org.