OCTOBER 2016

The Dove (family service)

NOVEMBER 2016

We are children of the King… but had to guess who these children grew up to be!

DECEMBER 2016

We looked at the Christmas story of shepherds and sheep and made shepherd’s staffs

Parent & Toddler Christmas Party

Christmas Market

Community carol singing

Saying farewell to Ralph

Carol service (‘Bright Morning Star’)

JULY 2016

God’s got plans for you!

Community Open Day

AUGUST 2016

Investigating our place in the Son…

SEPTEMBER 2016

Prayer walks in Goldthorpe, praying for the new primary school

Churches Together, exploring thankfulness and gratitude

Macmillan Coffee Morning

APRIL 2016

Fools for Christ (family service)

MAY 2016

Churches Together at Furlong Road, celebrating Pentecost

JUNE 2016

Are you a wall or a windmill? (Exploring our responsiveness to the Holy Spirit)

JANUARY 2o16

The New Year’s Day Party

A Royal Exchange (family service)

FEBRUARY 2016

God’s Not Deaf!

Churches Together at the Salvation Army

MARCH 2016

Women’s World Day of Prayer, praying for Cuba

Tatijana’s dedication service

Palm Sunday Procession at Phoenix Park

Easter March of Witness

Bible study on ‘grace gifts’

I’m not for one moment advocating no sweet treats over Christmas (I know for many people, these are a highlight of this time of year), but I do long for a saccharine-free Christmas. So often in our society, we paint this time of year with a falsely sentimental hue which veers into self-indulgence, exaggeration and unreality… and then get upset when reality hits and it does not conform to this picture. I have a particular loathing for the line in ‘Away In A Manger’ which declares ‘But little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes‘, because it is blatantly untrue: if Jesus took on human flesh and came as a baby, He most definitely did cry, because all babies do! To suggest otherwise is to place unreal burdens on all parents coping with the cries of their babies and to implant the wrong notion in our heads that in the Incarnation, Jesus did not really know what it is to be human. He was most certainly a ‘special baby’, but I doubt that stopped Him crying (or being sick or filling a nappy…)

As we prepare in our family for the arrival of a baby, I am struck once again by how reality differs so much from this saccharine, sentimental idea of the Christmas story. Giving birth is a messy, painful, laborious and undignified job. Yes, we rejoice over the birth of a child, but giving birth in a stable in an over-crowded city with no clean sheets and no previous experience of childbirth must have been terrifying for Mary and Joseph. Quite how we have moved from this to the notion of a ‘perfect Christmas’, with family members sitting happily around a table stuffed full of food and being wittily amusing for hours on end, baffles me!

The problem with our ideas of a ‘perfect Christmas’ is that it lays unnecessary burdens on our shoulders. Jesus had harsh words for the Pharisees who ‘tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.‘ (Matt 23:4) Don’t let anyone, least of all yourself, put heavy, cumbersome loads on your shoulder’s about the perfect Christmas. It really doesn’t matter if the turkey is dry or the sprouts soggy or the Christmas pud more like leather than the moist, succulent pictures you see in your cookery book. Families will have arguments on Christmas Day like any other day: this is not the end of the world. We can still love, forgive, move on and cope with imperfection. It’s easier to do so if we accept reality as it is instead of trying to stuff it full of unreal expectations, like Clark Griswald in ‘National Lampoon Christmas Vacation.’

The truth of the Incarnation is that God became ‘one of us’: ‘the same blood, the same flesh – one of us/ the same skin, the same breath – one of us/ The same dust and dirt, the same trials and hurts – one of us.’ (‘The Name of Emmanuel’, Matt Redman) If we grasp hold of this truth, we will have a blessed Christmas, for it’s all about God with us – one of us – and not about anything else we imagine it to be. As long as God is with us, we will be fine.

We talk a lot about the glory of God at Christmas: angels singing ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests’ (Luke 2:14), a phrase echoed in many of the carols we sing. ‘Glory’ can be a hard term to define, but is generally used to mean the splendour, beauty and majesty associated with God as well as referring to the honour or renown due to God because of His character and achievements. In the Christmas narratives, this is usually associated with bright lights that dazzle. Since God is light (1 Jn 1:5), that association makes a lot of sense.

Matt Redman has written a song based on the carol ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ (which talks of the dark streets of Bethlehem being illuminated by ‘the everlasting light‘) which has the chorus ‘the glory of Christmas is the glory of Christ/ And the story of Christmas is the story of His love.’ (‘O Little Town (The Glory of Christmas)’, Matt Redman). As we draw close to Christmas, we do well to remember that its glory is not in the lights we see on Christmas trees or in shops and that the joy we feel is not due to the food or drink we consume or the presents we open. The glory of Christmas is the glory of Christ: Christ shining His light into the darkness, lighting up the gloom, despair and hopelessness of the world and infusing it with hope, joy and peace. The story of Christmas is not about office parties, Father Christmas or family get-togethers; it is about God’s love entering our world in tangible form and reminding us that we are not alone. That glory can be ours this weekend and throughout every day of our lives.