Parish of St Helen Witton Northwich Cheshire

Church Services

Look around you in church this coming Sunday - what are you all doing there? What draws people to come to church, ever? Each of us has different needs and enjoys different things, so what is it that pulls us all together? For some it's where we've always come on a Sunday; Sunday wouldn't be Sunday without coming to church. 'Church' becomes a way of living without us really thinking about what draws us there or the reasons behind it. Are we hypocrites?

Do we just come on Sunday and then behave badly the rest of the week?
Do we use church to get our weekly bucketful of forgiveness so we can start again?
Do we come to see our friends and make arrangements for socialising with them, saving the money on telephone calls?
Is it perhaps a chance to try out our new outfits? Do we come to feel better? To get a weekly 'fix' of happy high?
Is it because it's our duty to come, and by doing that, no matter how good or bad the service is, we at least feel we've done our bit.
Do we come to bring our troubles and worries and give them to God so we leave less anxious and more comforted?

It's amazing that church congregations work so well together when the basic reasons of our actual being there are so often poles apart - if not in actual conflict with each other!

So, you may be wondering, where do the signs and symbols come in? Well it's fundamental: we could all stay at home or walk in the countryside but we choose to come to the same place at the same time. Presumably if we had warm weather and not many articles needing to be stored between services, we could meet outside rather than in a building. As it is, we meet in a church building, and we deliberately plan to meet at the same time rather than have a larger time into which we all 'drop-in' for our own chosen shorter periods.

So 'church services' are about meeting together; together with each other and with God. The expectations we each bring with us about God, ourselves and other people help to shape the results of that coming together.

Have a think about your own expectations - from God, yourself and from other members of the congregation. What do you think your part is in helping the other members to meet their expectations?

Jo White

Paschal Candle

The Rev. Dr. Jo White, a vicar in Derbyshire, recalls her police chase...

Ever had a police escort to church? Last year as I drove along the quiet country lanes on my way to a neighbouring parish, where I had been invited to join their service, I was followed and then stopped. Blue lights flashing and sirens blaring. I kid you not!

It was 4 am on Easter morning and apparently the police regularly stop any car on that road at that time of night. It was very helpful for me though, as the policeman knew the church and led me to the correct turn off. Wonderful.

Why so early, do I hear you asking? Well, the service began outside the church building with prayers around a bonfire, from the flames of which the Paschal Candle was lit and from that then each congregation member's candle. We then took the new light symbolising the Light of Christ into the dark building and continued our service. The candle represents Christ's resurrection, a light shining in darkness, a light that will dispel the darkness of a world without God.

And it really was a completely dark building except for the held candles; I remember as I held one for the organist as the usual light bulb over his music had gone out. The timing worked excellently with the first rays of the new day filtering through the windows as the Gospel reading of that empty tomb was being read.

If you get a chance have a close look at a Paschal (also spelled Pascal) Candle, also called an Easter Candle. They're tall and quite thick, lit on Easter Day for the first time and then lit at all main services until Pentecost. After this they are often kept near the font and lit at Baptisms so that the individual's Baptismal candle to take home is lit from it. Some churches also light them at funerals.

The candle is traditionally decorated with the sign of the cross, the symbol of life and death; alpha and omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, a reminder that Christ is the beginning and the end of all things; the date of the year, a reminder that the Lord of all ages is present here and now, as well as remembering how many years since he rose from the dead (however inaccurate the dating may be); and five 'nails' inserted in the shape of the cross to symbolise the five wounds of Christ.

Have a close look at a Pascal Candle. What darkness do you want Christ's light to overcome or get rid of in your life or local community?

Flowers

Have you ever visited a town for the first time, and been attracted by the really old church in the middle of it? You squeeze in through the huge old door and find a wonderful church – except there is something missing: there are no flowers. Somehow their absence gives the church an empty unused feeling. Often it means that the church you’ve just discovered is no longer used for worship, and is now in the good care of the Churches Conservation Trust.

So what is it about flowers that make such a difference? Flowers are more than just ‘living’ things. They bring colour, shape, scents and memories with them, and that’s without any ‘meanings’ being given to each variety, such as ‘remembrance’ for ‘rosemary’.

When we visit people we often take cut flowers with us as a gift. We use them at times of celebration as well at times of illness and sorrow. They add the finishing touch to a dinner table, brighten up a dull corner and can attract attention to something near to where they are.

We use flowers to express our emotions, both in the choice of the flowers themselves and in the way they are arranged. Some speak of the informality of the country, while others are more sophisticated. Spiky flowers and sharp lines give a harshness, a crispness, perhaps a cleanness, while flowing shapes and pastel colours speak of gentleness and comfort. Yet others are used to tell visually a story or a sentiment that words alone struggle to express.

In one church this past Easter there was a formal arrangement placed on the lid of the baptismal font. It comprised three levels in decreasing circles but each with increasing height. All the flowers were placed almost vertically from a circular base of 35 cms diameter (approx 14”). The lowest of daffodils was 30 cms tall, then a second layer of taller yellow flowers came from within that ring to a height of 45 cms. The final ring was made up of 1 metre tall (3 feet) white Easter lilies. The whole arrangement spoke of Christ rising from the tomb. Not just waking slowly but rushing from below, up and out, in a great triumphal explosion. Fantastic!

Floor Tiles

Originally the floor in all buildings was simply beaten earth; compacted so hard that it could be swept clean. Sometimes rushes or straw would be laid on it both for cleanliness and to sweeten the smell in the room. Stone or plaster were used in later years but it wasn’t until the 13th century that glazed tiles, durable, hygienic, and adding a new decorative element, were introduced to make pavements.

Decorative floor tiles began to be used in royal palaces, and the homes of wealthy citizens and it wasn’t long before they made an appearance in abbeys and rich parish churches.

So what is a tile? Basically, it is a shaped segment of clay which has been fired - or baked. By 1300 two types of paving were well established. The first was single colour tiles, cut in various shapes, often using only two colours: very dark green being used for a black effect and cream for white. They were fitted together in geometrical patterns, using the colour contrasts and the shapes to give the decorative effects.

The second style was formed by making square tiles and decorating a number of them, whilst leaving others plain. They were then arranged by placing the decorated tiles together within a border of the plain tiles.

The decorating of individual tiles - encaustic tiles - was a process done by cutting into the surface of the unbaked tile and putting a contrasting colour of clay into that indent. So that when baked the two clays showed as different colours. They were often reddy-brown with the design in buff.

Over the years the decorating of tiles has changed enormously, with the pattern now generally being placed, by hand, machine or photographically (with or without a computer!) on top of the already baked clay tile and then being covered with a transparent glaze to protect it.

The crucial invention which allowed the mass-production of tiles was made in 1840 by Richard Prosser. He discovered that it was possible to compact dust clay using a press, and thence to make tiles, rather than using damp plastic clay. The tiles were less moist, giving a faster drying time, and warped less during firing.

Visit a church or cathedral (or even a museum) which has floor tiles and have a good look at how they are made and set together. How is your faith made? Is it a layer over you or have you been cut deep and it poured into you?

Parapets

When you get closer to one of our older parish churches, there are aspects of the building, particularly some of the decorative features, that make you wonder why they were added. Have a look at the top of the tower or the top of the wall where it joins the roof. Often you can’t see the join because they’ve put a decorative wall of a couple of feet tall there (0.6 m). So why is it there?

There’s lots of these walls - parapets - in London on ordinary houses dating from early 1700s. They were introduced because the Building Act of 1707 banned projecting wooden eaves in the cities of Westminster and London. They were considered a fire risk. Instead an 18-inch brick parapet was required, with the roof set behind.

But churches much older than this have them and they can help to date the building. In the fourteenth century they were plain, while towards the end of the fourteenth and then into the fifteenth they were crenellated – in other words they look like castle battlements. (The rising parts are called merlons or cops and the separating spaces are called crenels, embrasures or loops.) From the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries they were often pierced with carving or of a balustrade form.

But the question, as you can imagine, is why? Why were they built like they are? Some experts suggest that their primary purpose was to hide ugly flat roofs. But many of them are not with a flat roof, so that can’t always be right. Others suggest that they are there to give the building a pleasing design for the eye. That makes sense. But why are so many crenellated?

Keep an eye out as you travel for churches and then go and find one with battlements. What battle do you think is going on there? What are they protecting themselves from?

The Churchyard Cross

In medieval days ‘God’s acre’ – the churchyard - was a busy, often noisy if not raucous place. It was used for dancing, games, feasting and for holding fairs: and travelling merchants would set up stalls within it. You can imagine it as being very different from today where we consider it a place of quiet, peacefulness and tranquillity.

This was because it was a non-cultivated grassy area that would have been central to the population and open and large enough for them to gather within it. The wheel is turning full circle when you hear or read some churches saying that they are the ‘centre’ of the community!

Prior to the Reformation (in the sixteenth century) every church had a large cross in the churchyard, and some still remain in whole or part today. The cross would have been originally erected on or near a pagan shrine or site and would have been the centre of worship until the church was built. Hence even today they are usually at the true centre of the consecrated area.

Most of them had three steps to enable people to be seen when they stood on them to speak. The three represented the Holy Trinity. They were the place where public announcements were made as well as where travelling or itinerant preachers would have stood to speak before the church was built. Some of these crosses have a ‘niche’ in the shaft in which a pyx (a holder for the consecrated host) was placed.

The church would then have been built to the north of the cross, and many think this was so that the shaft of the cross might remain in sunlight and throw its own shadow, rather than be shadowed itself by the church building.

Before the Reformation individual headstones were not generally used. Those who could afford such luxuries had a monument within the church itself. So the cross came to be seen as the ‘headstone’ for all the graves.

Today there is a clamour for a personal ‘mark’ to be made where a person’s body or ashes are laid, but then all came under the one ‘mark’ of the cross.

Have a look at an unfamiliar churchyard and consider their large cross. Is it the centre of anything or anywhere? How is it decorated? What do you think its different purposes have been over the years and for today? Would it act as a ‘mark’ for you?

Dr Jo White