DEAR SISTERS AND BROTHERS,
Advent Calendars. I hope you have yours if you are an Advent Calendar person. There is something rather special about opening those doors, seeing what images appear. For a number of years. we had a calendar which invited us to read about examples of Christian witness and gave us a short prayer to say. Sitting around the meal table when we did this was rather special and more to do with God and less to do with chocolate. We mark Advent, now, by abstaining from eating meat. I can commend this. It makes you think about the season at every meal.
Advent is the gift of waiting on God. We generally are poor at waiting. And waiting for Christmas is particularly difficult. Just as children find it difficult to wait for Christmas, so adults in church want those carols now and get grumpy when we roll up to Church and are offered Advent hymns/carols instead. We are blessed to have an Advent Carol Service on 1 December. Before rushing on to what we might think of as the ‘main event’, come along and enter this season with its own richness of music and scripture.
That said, we are going to try something a little different this year with the Nativity. Instead of having it on the Sunday before Christmas, we are holding it on Parade Sunday (8 December). We want to offer something when the maximum number of younger families will be present. We will also be receiving toys which will be distributed by the Salvation Army. Do please bring something. Unwrapped, please. We hope that you will come and support this venture.
Last year we had our first Christmas Tree Festival. We asked groups within our Church community to decorate a tree and we enhanced our church with these. We are doing the same, only larger. We have invited local companies to bring a tree into church and we have asked them to donate a small sum to a homeless charity here in Bury. We hope, over time, to make this a significant part of our seasonal fund-raising and use this as an opportunity to welcome people into Church. As I write, an invitation has gone out to the Mayor of Bury to open the Festival on 10 December at about 6 pm. Our own Christmas Tree is arriving on Saturday 7 December. If you are able to flex a muscle and help us bring the tree into Church and manoeuvre it into position, we will be gathering on a Saturday morning. Closer to the time we will know the time we need to be in position. Do ask! Many hands and all that.
For many people outside the worshipping community, the Christmas Carol Service is one of those occasions when stepping inside Church is seen as safe. Our Christmas Carol Service is on 22 December at 6.30 pm and will be followed by mulled wine and mince pies. We encourage you to extend an invitation to family and friends to come and join us on this occasion. This is Church at its most accessible. Research tells us that people really like to be invited (and offered lifts!). We have little cards that we can give you to pass onto friends with the highlight services across the season. Do take and do give to those in your circle of friends. Your invitation might be just the gift that they need this Christmas.
We welcome lots of people to our Christingle on Christmas Eve. This service is at 3.30 pm. We need help in putting the Christingles together. Over the last couple of years, we have had a great team of volunteers gathering on 23 December in the Ashton Room. If you are able to join us, we will be in a creative mood at 9.00 am that morning. Previous occasions suggest that it will be all done by 11.00 am – lots of time to go and do that last-minute shopping, if that is your thing.
We have a tremendous cycle of services right at the start of the Christmas Season. Our Midnight Mass starts at 11.30 pm on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day itself we have a quiet 8.00 am Prayer Book Communion and will sing our hearts out at 10.00 am Sung Eucharist. The following days, St Stephen’s Day (Boxing Day) there will be a communion as there will be on St John’s Day (27 December) both at 10 am. Access will be through the Choir Vestry.
Note that these services are the start of the Christmas Season. That season, as the song says, has twelve days. If you receive our e-bulletin (and you can always ask via the Rector to have an e-bulletin) we invite you to search the internet for resources with the hashtag #FollowTheStar. We are each encouraged not to stop our observance of Christmas just because we have reached Christmas Day but rather to start our observance of twelve days closely following Jesus.
On the First Sunday of Christmas (29 December), there will be open house at the Rectory from when coffee finishes to 4 pm. Jackie and I invite you to drop in and spend time chatting to whoever is present. There will be nibbles and refreshment.
One of our key concerns is reaching out to those families whose children we have had the privilege of baptising. We are going to invite them to our Parade Service on 12 January when the Church celebrates the Baptism of Christ. The service will have all the usual elements to our Parade service with the addition of blending in some of the habits we are learning at Story-Telling Church. Your support, as regular members of the congregation, is really important. Let’s welcome those who come with the love of Christ.
As the new calendar year begins, so we step into a new era in the Diocese. There is a consultation on the Diocesan Vision at All Saints, Brandlesholme on the evening of 8 January. If you want to know what that’s about and contribute to the thinking, that is the occasion to attend.
So much going on. And sometimes, in all that, we can forget God, forget the reason why we gather, why we do all we do at Church. If you look elsewhere in this edition of the magazine, you will find a few electronic tools we are offering. But for those who like their time with God in “old school” ways, here’s a simple idea. As Christmas Cards arrive, take one or two to that place where you say your prayers. Hold them. Remember who sent them. Give thanks for that friendship over the years. And ask for the grace that you, like Mary, may carry Jesus into the world. No need to be sophisticated or complicated. Be a channel of love and hope, as Mary is for us. If you want more, then read Matthew’s Gospel. That will be the main source of our Gospel Readings this year from Advent to Christ the King. It’s long. So perhaps start at Matthew 5, which is the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. Read that. Slowly. There will be plenty for the most spiritually hungry person to chew on for many weeks.
With love and prayers,
Julian
Rector