St Annes

At Messy Church this month (January) we learned about the story of the Tower of Babel and how God gave us different languages, to encourage us to work together.  We built towers, saw how high we could jump, made Mehndi hands, explored our bible reading in Spanish and discovered that Messy Church speaks lots of different languages including Polish, Portuguese, Gudurati, Hindi, English and even a little bit of Latin!

Thank you to everyone who came to Messy Church this month, including welcoming some new families.

Christmas would not be Christmas without St Anne’s traditional and raucous Crib Service on Christmas Eve.  This year we learned about the birth of Jesus from the point of view of the Angels, who thought they knew everything about God, but discovered they had lots to learn.  Each child on their arrival was presented with a bag of goodies to help them worship though the service, with questions, candles, streamers, bells, stars, hearts and even chocolate coins to make the service as active as possible.

Thank you to Sheila for being Angel Gabriel, for John who wrote our script and everyone who dressed as a character from the Christmas Story to participate in our nativity scene, gathering around baby Jesus’ crib.

We had a wonderful night at our traditional Nine Lessons and Carols service, surrounded by candles, led by the St Anne’s and Tudor Choirs, with the lessons read by friends and family of St Anne’s Church, representing our diverse and inclusive church community. Thank you to everyone who came, sang and read at a beautiful evening of worship as we retold the story of Jesus, God with Us.

We had fun at our Christmas Messy Church on saturday 20 December – making our own Christmas Party food, while exploring the Christmas Story.  We made sandwiches to take on our journey with Mary and Joseph and Cheesy Stars to remind us of how the Wise Men learned about Jesus.  We also created sheep biscuits (decorated with bananas to represent the wool) and marshmallow angels as we learned about how the shepherds visited Jesus in the stable.  In church Rev’d Liz helped us to understand that in Jesus, God is always with us. Afterwards we each had the opportunity to visit St Nic himself, in Santa’s grotto.

Thank you to all who came and helped make our Christmas Messy Church a memorable experience!

Friends from St Anne’s and our sister Church St Paul with St Augustine’s Church had a wonderful evening at the Crows Nest pub last night (16 December) for Sing Christmas.  We sang carols, shared some of the stories about Christmas from the bible and enjoyed the wonderful hospitality of the Crows Nest team.

We had some extra special visitors with food donations for the Food Bank yesterday (12 December) at St Anne’s Hall. Our PCSO Sally Morgan, brought several colleagues with her to drop off their gift.  Later in the morning, we took the food gift from the local police station, with those generously donated by the community of Western Park to the Food Bank in Braunston Frith where they will be shared with families in need over the Christmas season.  Thank you to all our volunteers who help with the weekly Friday ‘drop off’ in the Hall and the weekly delivery to the Food Bank.

On Tuesday afternoon (9th December) the Mothers Union gathered to celebrate Christmas.  Following some Christmassy poems, we welcomed Paulette as our newest member.  Then we retold the Christmas story using nativity sets we brought in from home, singing carols, and remembering what God has done for us, through the birth of Jesus.  Thank you to Margaret and Sheila, our Co-Chairs and the entire MU committee for leading us through another year of MU meetings, events and fundraising activities.

The Wonderful Walkers and Allotmenteers came together with friends from St Anne’s Church yesterday (Sunday 7 December) to enjoy wreath making.  Using greenery gathered from peoples gardens, dried fruit, spices and ribbons each individual and family went home with a unique display to adorn their front door. Thank you to Rev’d Sharon Plant and friends from the Wonderful Walks and Allotment for making such a special afternoon.  It was great to do something creative in the midst of a busy season of preparation.

Thank you to everyone who came to the LOROS Christmas Coffee concert this morning, we raised over £250 on the raffel alone.

The LOROS singers led us in a wonderful selection of carols and seasonal music, and we joined in with some of the traditional carols.  Looking forward already to your spring concert.

We had a wonderful concert of carols and Christmas music from the Leicester University Chamber Choir last night  (Friday 5 December).  It was great to welcome the talented students, their family and friends and share in mulled wine and mince pies in the interval.  My favourite piece was ‘Veni Veni Emmanuel’ an amazing musical variation on the Advent carol ‘O come, O come Emmanuel’.  I understand that it was LUCC’s favourite composition to sing too!

Thank you for a glorious evening!

Today (Thursday 4 December) we welcomed Bishop Saju to St Paul and St Augustine’s Worship Centre to celebrate the confirmation of two members of St Anne’s congregation.

Before they were confirmed Khashy and Ghazal shared a little of their faith journey with +Saju and the congregation during the service, before re-confirming their Baptism promises and being anointed by +Saju as a sign of the Holy Spirit blessing their lives.

It was wonderful to also celebrate with Gary and Cas who were both Baptised and Confirmed by +Saju

Last week we launched our new Youth Choir, led by Lorn from Leicester Vocal Tech.  It was wonderful to welcome twelve children to start singing together, and to chill out before the choir rehearsal in the hall with crumpets, toast and a film.

Our next session before Christmas is Wednesday 10 December, from 3pm in the hall for chill out time and then choir in church from 4-5pm.

For children in Year 5 and over!

Christmas School Visits have begun!

I have been wonderful in the first week of December to welcome pupils from local schools to explore the Christmas Story and how Christian’s celebrate Christmas.

Pupils have been learning about how Angels are Messengers and making Angel message decorations for the tree, discovering the real meaning of Christmas, praying for peace across the world  and seeing how much of the Christmas story they can remember by playing Christmas Charades.

Reader Margaret Gillespie is to retire!

Our Reader Margaret Gillespie is to retire after 30 years in ministry. Margaret has served the parishes of St Anne, St Paul with St Augustine and St Margaret’s for over 25 years.  During this time she has preached hundreds of sermons, led countless funerals, taught thousands of school children about her Christian faith, and served her three churches in a variety of different ways.

While we will miss Margaret’s Reader ministry, she will continue as co-Chair of the Mothers’ Union and will keep praying and supporting our work from the pews.

We will be having a celebration of Margaret’s ministry in February 2026.

Thank you Margaret for your faithful years of service.

Cleaner at St Anne’s Hall

St Anne’s Church, Letchworth Road, Leicester is looking for Cleaner to undertake the cleaning and care of our popular Church Hall.

The position is an employed contract for three hours each week with a salary of £12.98 per hour.

For an informal conversation about the post please speak with the Vicar, Rev’d Liz Wilson on Tel: 07591 697380.

This post is being recruited using safer recruitment practices.

Application by CV and Covering Letter to the Vicar, Rev’d Liz Wilson.

Email: revlizwilson@gmail.com, Post: St Anne’s Vicarage, 76 Letchworth Road, Leicester, LE3 6FH.

Closing Date: 5pm, Monday 8 December 2025

Interviews: Wednesday 17 December 2025

Hall Cleaner Job Description and Person Specification

Lots of fun learning about Noah was had at Messy Church on Saturday 15 November.  We made (and ate) rainbow fruit skewers, bashed nails into wood, to see what it was like to build the ark, tried to encourage the animals onto the ark (throwing balls into a cardboard reconstruction) and made wibbly-wobbly animals (from balloons with a marble inside).

During the celebration we sang a song about the animals going into Noah’s ark, and lit candles to remember people.

Thank you to everyone who came!  See you next month as we celebrate Christmas!

This morning (9 November) St Anne’s Church joined the nation in participating in the Act of Remembrance and two minutes silence at 11am.  In our service of Holy Communion, during this 80th Anniversary of VE and VJ day, Reader Denis posed this challenging question. ‘What would Jesus do if faced with the evil of the holocaust?’

Thank you to Denis for his excellent sermon, all who participated in this special service and the team that decorated the church in Remembrance poppies.

St Anne’s church needs your help!

Can you support us financially?

In 2026 it will cost us £1,250 per week to run St Anne’s Church.
• This includes caring for our buildings and all our activities and services.
• Two-thirds of our income comes from generous giving from our congregations.

Ways, you can help us!

• Make a regular cash donation in the plate at the back of church.
• Make a donation by QR code.
• Make a donation by BACS (using the account details below).
• Set up a regular Standing Order from your bank (using the account details below).
Name: Parochial Church Council of St Anne Leicester
Sort code: 40-28-06
Account number: 91245104.

Funding Flyer

We had a wonderful worship session at Messy Church on 18 October learning about two biblical heroins Esther and Lydia.  Esther was a Queen in the Old Testament who saved her people by being brave.  We learned about her by making crowns and making our own dressing up costumes from cardboard.  Lydia was a wealthy business woman who traded in purple cloth, who helped to lead one of the earliest church communities. We learned about her by experimenting with tie-dying and making edible coins. Thank you to everyone who attended. Our next Messy Church is on Saturday 15 November, 4-6pm.

Thank you to everyone who attended and supported our Autumn Fair on Saturday 4 October.  We raised over £1000 to support the maintenance of St Anne’s Hall.