Here are some photos from the carol singing yesterday at the Christmas Sheep Celebration. We had to sing ‘While Shepherds Watched’ at a service about sheep! We also sang an ode about the knitted sheep (naming them all) to the tune of ‘On Ilkley Moor Baht ‘At’ and even the community police present at the service joined in the singing.

There were lots of crafts to get involved with, as well as crosswords, wordsearches and colouring sheets about Cecil the lost sheep. Our thanks to Sue for looking after these so well.

Here’s a picture of the wonderful puppets we borrowed from DIocese House in Rotherham as we practised beforehand:

It was lovely to see so many people enjoying themselves.

We were thrilled to be able to give out hamper prizes (donated by the Co-op in Bolton-on-Dearne) and a variety of other prizes (sheep cakes donated by PR Supplies) to people who took part in the Advent Sheep Trail running over the past two weeks.

Our thanks to the Salvation Army to hosting the event, to Alison and Karen for their planning and help with all activities, to all who participated and helped with the Advent Sheep Trail and to those who helped with setting up, helping and tidying away today.

As one member of Dearne Churches Together remarked today, ‘We don’t do boring!’ Today’s Christmas Sheep Celebration certainly couldn’t have been described as boring! We had a variety of Christmas crafts to do (making sheep keyrings, sheep ‘jumpers’ (like a jack-in-a-box, not a wearable sweater!), decorating sheep, could play the Lego game ‘Shave a Sheep‘, and had various word searches and colouring activities to do. We also enjoyed singing about sheep and listening to a story about a lost sheep, not to mention watching a short puppet show featuring a sheep, a donkey and a camel…

Cecil the Lost Sheep had his own story:

We were also pleased to round up all 30 of our lost sheep from the Advent Sheep Trail.

At the Parent & Toddler Christmas Party, we had a visitor in red bringing presents for the children (though some slept through this momentous event!)

The adults also won raffle prizes Finally, we gave flowers and gift vouchers to Diane, who has run this group for many years (starting when her own children were only toddlers and now happy to see her grandchildren attend) Although she will still attend the group, she will no longer be running it and we were glad to be able to acknowledge her commitment, faithfulness and excellent organisation over many years. Thank you so much!

Today we had our Parent & Toddler Christmas party – the Christmas jumpers and dresses were very impressive!

The food was equally impressive! – thanks to Diane Burgin and Bev Wassell for this.

We enjoyed a game of ‘Pass The Unicorn’:

All in all, both parents and toddlers seemed to have a good time!

Stephen spoke tonight at our new family service, armed with a very large teddy bear…

He spoke about how, as children, we often like having the comfort of a teddy bear at night when it is dark: ‘When Teddy’s there, I don’t feel scared any more; I feel peaceful.’ A teddy bear can be a comfort: ‘Teddy to the rescue!’

In the same way, God has provided us with a source of comfort (and rescue) in the person of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, whose name (according to Matthew 1:23) is also ‘Immanuel’ – ‘God with us.’ When Jesus is with us, we don’t have to be afraid… of bugs, spiders, snakes, the dentist, doctor or anything else, for Jesus promised His followers peace: ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.’ (John 14:27)

When Jesus returned to heaven, He asked His Father to send a gift, the gift of His Holy Spirit to be with us always and whose peace can bring comfort and strength to us in every situation. Peace is a very precious Advent gift that can last far longer than the four weeks leading up to Christmas!

We can thank God for Jesus and for the Holy Spirit, for the gift of peace which guides us and calms our fears. To help the children remember this, they were all given their own teddy bears!