Today is Christmas Day, the first day of Christmas. So here’s a fun video to watch and listen to, that very familiar song ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’. Each day I’ll be putting up a link to a different version of the song (some traditional, some not-so-traditional!) This one is by a variety of Christian artists. I particularly like Mark Hall of ‘Casting Crowns’ who is definitely not a rapper!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBBAEy1Xw9w&feature=player_embedded#)

The charity I want to look at today is the Bible Society
(http://www.biblesociety.org.uk)
As a teacher of languages, it’s perhaps inevitable that I’m interested in Bible translation. This charity is involved in Bible translation: what is so shocking is that more than 4,400 languages in the world still wait for even one book of the Bible. It’s involved in more than 550 translation and retranslation projects, but is also involved in getting the Bible onto audio (a billion people can’t read, but only 3% of languages have the Bible in audio) and into Braille (every 5 seconds, someone goes blind, but the complete Braille Bible exists in only 35 languages.) Moreover, the charity is not just involved overseas, for in our own country, the Bible is no longer a point of references for everyday life and Christians often lack the confidence to apply the Bible’s message in a society that increasingly sees it as irrelevant. In England and Wales, the Bible Society works with the worlds of the media, politics, arts and education to show how the Bible connects with life and have programmes to make the Bible available for prisoners, refugees and people in special need.

Our church regularly receives magazines from Bible Society, so do make sure you get your copy and read more about what this charity is doing!

Today was the last coffee morning before Christmas and outside, the festive spirit was in full force!


Inside we had willing helpers, though not all were entering into the festive spirit!



Mark supported local businesses and enjoyed brunch!

The notice board was updated as well.

Have a wonderful Christmas – don’t forget that the next service at church will be on Sunday 1st January at 10.30 a.m.

David Cameron has talked a lot about the ‘Big Society’ and the topic of charitable and voluntary work is quite a hot one these days. I have spent most of my life involved in charity work and feel privileged to be involved in volunteering. I have volunteered with a local community centre for many years, was involved with an environmental charity in the past (Groundwork Dearne Valley), am involved in fund-raising for my place of work, which is also a registered charity, and volunteer here at church as well. I think there is a whole army of volunteers out there who do a great job in our society and that Christians are among some of the best volunteers there are.

I’ve already talked a little about this when we were renovating the building:
http://stmarksgoldthorpe.blogspot.com/2010/04/community-payback.html

What I thought I’d like to do over the twelve days of Christmas, starting on Christmas Day, is take a look at various charities and see what they do to help those in need. These are all charities I’ve been involved with over the years and I’m sure there are absolutely tons more that deserve a mention. If you would like to mention your own favourite charity, please let me know and I’ll try to include them too. I’ve tried to look at things that are happening in this country and abroad and to include a broad range of projects, but I’ve also looked specifically at Christian charities because I think we need to realise just how much the church is doing. So often we can have small vision and even feel ashamed of the church at times, but overall, God is doing amazing things in the world and often He’s using ordinary people like you and me to achieve those things.

So, amidst the Christmas festivities and fun, take a moment each day to look at the blog and find out more about different charities. God is interested in the world; He is not a parochial, insular God and His people should always reflect His character. These charities are working to fulfil Amos 5:25

“But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

May we support others in their work and be open to the new things which I’m sure God has for us to do in 2012.

It’s 22nd December… three days to go before Christmas! I doubt many of could say we’re entirely ready and prepared. At this stage, there may well still be shopping to do or presents still to wrap; for most of us, there will definitely be food preparation at the very least still on our ‘To Do’ lists!

What is so enormously reassuring about Christmas, however, is that it shows us God is never taken by surprise and there is absolutely nothing left to do in terms of what is needed for our salvation. There was absolutely nothing we could do to save ourselves: as Aaron Shust says in his song ‘Come and Save Us’:
“There’s nothing we can do
Nothing we can do
Father, we need You
To come and save us”

Thankfully, the Father’s plan, devised even before the creation of the world (Rev 13:8), did not need us to achieve some level of goodness or rely on our brilliance to succeed. It depended entirely on the Son’s willingness to do the Father’s will (Heb 10:5-7) and on His obedience to God. And He did not fail us!

“It’s all been done
It’s all been done
You have come
All for love.”

So, whilst we may still have things to do before we can rest on 25th December, we can indeed rest in the fact that the Saviour has come and we can, therefore, be saved.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV140bmx55U

The Christmas story often gets condensed, rather like fast-forwarding through a familiar film. It all seems to blur together: the angelic messages, the journey to Bethlehem, the choir of angels, Jesus in the manger, a host of visitors including shepherds and wise men. We like to fit it all into one carol service and that’s understandable, but sometimes we get a little confused in all this speed.

The Christmas story, as with any pregnancy and birth, took time. The wise men did not arrive at the stable, but some time later, so the story actually takes well over a year to unfold.

One of the least-told stories of Christmas (perhaps because it doesn’t fit into our saccharine-sweet, rosy-coloured view of the season) is in Matthew 2:13-18. After the wise men searched for a king in the ‘logical’ place (asking Herod about the birth of this new king), Herod was alerted to the threat from a new rival. In typically ruthless fashion, he decided to eliminate this threat, giving orders “to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi” (Matt 2:18) This dark event, known as the ‘slaughter or massacre of the Innocents’, reflects the darkness of sin.

Michael Card has captured this part of the Christmas story in his haunting song ‘Spirit of the Age’. The video that accompanies this draws a shocking parallel with today, for we still slaughter innocents, even in so-called civilised countries, asserting that unborn children are not really human. We need to understand the ‘spirit of the age’ and stand against ‘this voice that speaks from hell’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT8OPGrTg-c

We are very pleased to announce that the church building on Beever Street was sold at auction in early December and contracts should be exchanged in early January. It has been a long journey to the new building and the sale of the old building will enable us to settle the remaining debts on the purchase of the Market Street property and continue to invest in the new building.

Holding the baptismal service in Beever Street a few weeks ago was a fitting way to say goodbye to the building and a reminder that we have grown as a church, because it felt very small in there!