Summer Concert
Sunday 2nd August 2026 at 6.00 pm
An evening concert of beautiful music, not to be missed!
Organ, Piano and Instrumentalists, Soloists and Choirs. Free Admission, Light Refreshments, Retiring Collection.
An Evening of Song!
Wednesday 8th July at 7.00pm, doors open at 6.30pm
Tickets £5, under 16s free but need a ticket – available from
Carole Cunningham on 07767155549 or Kathryn Jones on 07731815325
Sue Elsey will be ordained as a Deacon of the Diocese by the Bishop in Durham Cathedral at the 10.00 am service on Sunday 28th June. Please remember in your prayers Sue and all who will be ordained this weekend.
Please join us in congratulating Rev’d Sue on her ordination and come along to our Holy Communion Service at 6.00pm on Sunday (28th) to support Sue as she begins her curacy at St Michael’s. The service will be followed by celebration in the Kepier Hall, all are welcome!
St Michael and All Angels Church will open to the public on Tuesday 12th May until late October 2026.
We are open Tuesday – Saturday 11am -1pm. Please come and visit this wonderful and historic building with no booking required.
Subject to the availability of the volunteers Stewards and Church services.
The Friends of the Houghton Parish Church Trust have a planned weekend full of events with something for everyone to enjoy!
| 7th May | 7pm | Houghton Brass & Houghton Youth Band Concert |
| 9th May | 10-1pm | Friends Coffee Morning |
| 10th May | 6pm | Friends Choral Evensong & AGM |
| 11th May | 7pm | The George Whitfield Organ Concert, Dr Gordon Stewart |
The Trustees are delighted to inform you The George Whitfield Organ Concert will be free again this year. Please invite your friends
Donations of savouries and cakes for the Coffee Morning would be welcome, by 9am on Saturday 9th May
You’re invited to join us this Holy Week & Easter
Palm Sunday
8.30 am Holy Communion (in Church)
10.00 am Holy Communion (in Church & Facebook)
6.00 pm Passiontide Devotion (in Church)
Holy Monday
2.00 pm Mothers’ Union Easter Readings (in Church)
7.00 pm Holy Communion in Holy Week (in Church)
Holy Tuesday
7.00 pm Holy Communion in Holy Week (in Church)
Holy Wednesday
7.00 pm Holy Week Communion in Holy Week (in Church)
Maundy Thursday
11.00 am Blessing of the Oils (Durham Cathedral)
7.00 pm Maundy Thursday Communion (St Michael’s, Houghton-le-Spring)
8.00 pm ‘Watch’
8.50 pm Compline ends ‘Watch’
Good Friday
10.00 am ‘All-In’ Worship on Good Friday (in Church)
11.15 am ‘Walk of Witness’ (starting in Church)
2.00 pm Good Friday Liturgy (in Church)
Easter Sunday
8.30 am Easter Day Communion (in Church)
10.00am Sung Easter Day Communion (in Church & Facebook)
6.00 pm Service of Light (in Church)
Tokens of His Passion, Sunday 29th at 6.00 pm
A Shared Passiontide Devotion with prayers, hymns & Choral music performed by the St Michael & All Angel’s Choir, with readings to help us reflect upon Christ’s Passion led by Rev’d John Barron.
Sunday 15th February in the Kepier Hall following the Eggs & Ashes ‘All-In’ Service at 10am in Church! 
Who can you invite?
If you’re able to come along, please let the church office know by email: stmichaels.hls@gmail.com or phone: 0191 512 1769 (Tues & Thurs 9am-2pm)
Paula Gooder’s book forms the basis of our Lent course this year at St Michael & All Angels’. The course is based on Pope Francis’ much acclaimed reflections ‘Evangelii Gaudium’ (meaning ‘The Joy of the Gospel’). We hope this time together will allow us to draw on our Advent and Christmas reflections on Christian ‘Joy’ and how we share that with others through our words and actions. Our aim is to offer a positive and realistic approach to sharing our faith in world that often feels like it needs a bigger dose of joy!
All are welcome to join us, wherever we are on our faith journey. We may be exploring, be new to faith or we may have been part of church for many years – we think the course will work for all.
To find out more, give us a call in the parish office (0191 512 1769) on Tuesdays or Thursdays between 10 and 2 or email us on stmichaelshls@gmail.com. It’s helpful for us to know numbers but also, just turn up if you want to, on Wednesday from 25th Feb to 25th Mar. We mean it when we say:
All are welcome
Thanks to everyone’s generosity, 500 jigsaw pieces have now been sponsored, leaving just the four ‘bonus’ pieces – as our 500 piece jigsaw actually has 504 pieces!
Instead of SELLING raffle tickets for these last four pieces, we are going to ALLOCATE A VIRTUAL RAFFLE TICKET NUMBER to each person who has already sponsored one or more pieces – no more money involved!
We will draw the raffle on 22nd January and contact the four bonus piece winners as soon as possible after that.
Many thanks from
The Jigsaw Team (Angela, Dian and Denise)