Mark preached about stars last night. God made all the stars (Gen 1:16), including the Seven Sisters constellation:

God placed all the stars in the sky and when we consider the heavens, we are amazed that God is also mindful of us (Ps 8:3-4). The same God who ordained the places of each star, thinks about us.
Crab Nebula

God counts the stars and calls them by name (Ps 147:4-5); He knows us by name also. God used the star of Bethlehem to guide people to Jesus, causing it to appear at a certain time and move to guide the wise men to the Lord. They came because they had seen His star (Matt 2:1-2) and were aware that it signified the birth of a king (Matt 2:7-11).

The true star of Christmas is Jesus, however. He is the ‘Bright and Morning Star’ (Rev 22:16). He is the greatest gift given by God at Christmas time, so that we should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the One worth celebrating!

Wise men brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to Jesus and Mark organised a treasure hunt for the carol service. We all had to find glitter balls and bells hidden in the community room.


Returning with our finds:

Claiming our prizes:

At the carol service last night, children and adults were involved in telling the Nativity story through actions and songs.






Our thanks to all who helped in this production and to all the children and young people for their enthusiasm and eager participation.

We also had birthdays to celebrate, though only one person was willing to be photographed!

Dave preached from Luke 2:6-16 yesterday morning, looking at the shepherds. This forms one of the many scenes of the Nativity which form the the ‘reason for the season’, a scene depicted in countless school plays and church services throughout the world at this time of year. It helps us to see what Christmas is all about. Santa may cater to our material needs, but Christ shows us that we have spiritual needs and He is the way to warmth, joy and peace.

The poor shepherds, separated from their families by the demands of their jobs, were included by God in the miracle of Christ’s birth – not forgotten by Him. The wise men in their wealth and wisdom realised there was something more – they were not forgotten by God. The power of Christmas is such that it includes everyone. It is the power of the ordinary and the humble. As Mary says in the ‘Magnificat’:
“My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant… He has lifted up the humble.He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” (Luke 1:45-48, 52-53)

God gave Himself to ordinary folk; God’s gifts often come in simple ways to us and we respond by simply caring for one another and loving one another as He has loved us.

Last night Paul Poulton and Viv Neville gave a Christmas concert at church, providing a modern musical take on traditional carols and Christmas songs.


In the band with Paul were bass player Ross Lander (from Huddersfield) and Aron Bicskey (from Hungary) on drums, with Viv singing some of her own songs and playing keys and percussion.

Romans 13 has a lot to say about how we should live on earth. Romans 13:1-5 looks at ‘submission to governing authorities’ and has been the subject of much debate over the years. The letter to the Romans was probably written in the mid 50s and corresponds to the events described in Acts 20:1-3, where Paul was taking up an offering from the churches to give to the church in Jerusalem (see also Rom 15:25-26). There is no doubt that Paul suffered much under the hands of the authorities (see 2 Cor 11:23-26). He had also pursued Christians himself when a Jew, persecuting them as a man under authority who was zealous for God, even though he was at the time obviously totally misguided. The Roman empire was certainly at this time no godly empire: the Roman religion included Emperor worship! Yet Paul talks about being subject to the governing authorities and says ‘there is no authority except that which God has established’ (Rom 13:1), which makes little sense to us. We can cope with the idea of obedience to that which is good and righteous, but is Paul really telling us to submit to authorities which are ungodly? What about Peter’s comment in Acts 5:29 “We must obey God rather than men!”? Is there no place for civil disobedience in Christianity?

These are difficult questions and Christians don’t always agree on the answers. But as we look at different authorities in the Bible, we may be surprised sometimes to see how God views them. God called Cyrus, a heathen king, his ‘anointed’ (Is 45:1) – the same title given to Christ! David refused to touch Saul, the Lord’s ‘anointed’, when he had the opportunity to kill him, even though Saul was persecuting David (1 Sam 26:5-11). Habakkuk struggled with the idea that God could use the Babylonians to discipline His chosen people, the Israelites: “God, you chose Babylonians for your judgment work? Rock-Solid God, you gave them the job of discipline? But you can’t be serious! You can’t condone evil!” (Hab 1:12, The Message)

The Bible also talks about how those who have lived under sinful authorities have reacted in the past. Moses, the ‘prince of Egypt’, tried to do God’s will in his own way by murdering an Egyptian who was ill-treating a Hebrew (Ex 2:11-12). That way didn’t work and Moses had to wait a long time before being called by God to be His deliverer in a different way (Ex 3:1-11). Daniel and his friends showed how to live with integrity and honour even in a culture that did not honour God or know His ways. Dan 1:8-16 shows how they negotiated a compromise of vegetarian diet which would allow them to obey God and yet which would also serve as a witness to the authorities. It’s not easy to be dogmatic about these issues. Sometimes we have to disobey (see also Daniel 3 and 6) and put our lives on the line. Jesus’s command to preach the gospel clearly had precedence over the authorities’ command not to teach in the name of Jesus any more (Acts 5:28-30). However, though we may struggle with the whole idea of authority in our society where the default setting seems to be anti-authority, we cannot escape the uncomfortable truth that God’s ways are not our ways and sometimes there are things He tells us to do which seem contrary to common sense and what we want to do. We need to listen carefully to His still, small voice and be both humble enough to submit to authority and confident enough in His authority to take a stand for Him, swimming against the tide if necessary.