Those who worship in other churches will be aware that the most usual arrangement of priest and altar these days is as we have things at All Saints - ie the presiding priest faces the congregation across the altar (facing liturgical west). Forty years ago things would have been as they are at St Peter's with the priest with his back to the congregation (facing east). During the past forty years one of the Eucharistic emphasises has been upon the baptised people of God gathered around the Eucharistic table offering worship together - and a movement away from the idea that the priest does it all 'up there' and the congregation looks on.

 A building like St Peter's was designed with the latter thinking in mind, but it isn't the model that the Church as a whole works with now (although some individuals might!), and given the various constraints that the building imposes on us we need to have a form of worship that expresses what we're saying about God and our relationship to him and each other in the Eucharist.

 With that in mind it was agreed by the St Peter's Area Committee at its meeting on 7 May that we should seek permission from the Archdeacon for a period of three to four months experimentation with a temporary, westward facing altar in the crossing area of St Peter's, similar to that which has been used on a few occasions in the past. I must stress that this is an experiment and there will be ample opportunity for written comments and suggestions to be submitted before any decisions about change or no change are made. We will probably have to experiment within the experiment about the seating of clergy and servers, about receiving communion - but by trying some slightly different ways, I hope that we will learn and grow in our understanding of this central act of our worship.                                                          Fr Mark