Principal Services – January-March

Happy New Year! Welcome to the start of 2014

This term we are going to work our way through the letter Ephesians and see what we can learn from Paul’s letter to the church he planted in this place.

Just before we enter Lent I look forward to welcoming Kevin Wren from the organisation South Asian Concern. SAC’s vision is for South Asians to become disciples of Jesus and their aim is to equip the church to share the good news of Jesus with South Asians. Hopefully Kevin will have much to say to help and inspire us to reach out into our local context as we seek to be a church that welcomes all.

Through Lent we shall look in details at the words of the creed. We often recite the creed at a Communion Service. Here we have an opportunity to try and understand more fully the words we say.

Yours in Christ,
 

Steve
Revd Steve Bailey 

Full Details

A Very Happy Christmas from St Paul’s

We joined together in church, this Christmas morning, to celebrate this anniversary of Christ’s coming to Earth for us, at Bethlehem.

There was much joyful festivity as people recounted the gifts they had received – and the time they had got out of bed this morning to find them ! But, using the illustration of a wrapped Toblerone, Steve explained how, even if it wasn’t exciting unwrapping a Toblerone, because the content is obvious, the content was still valuable. The Jews had not been looking for a Messiah in a humble stable, but God's gift of Jesus to us is unmeasurable – the gift not just of the baby in the stable, but the one who died for us at Calvary.

As our season of Christmas services comes to an end, may we wish everyone a very happy Christmas and the joy and peace that the Christ child brings.

Christingle and Crib Service

The popular Christingle and Crib Service was held at 4.0 p.m. this afternoon. The church was packed with about 150 expectant children and parents.

Excited children helped to answer Steve’s questions about the events of Christmas – what happened – what did it mean? Then our young people acted out the story of that first Christmas, with some modern explanations (Mary: “I’m about to pop!”)

Then came the retelling of the meaning of Christmas, using Christingles (see previous blog), illustrated by children holding giant replicas of the parts. All the Christingles were then distributed and were lit while we sang “Silent night.”

For prayers, we were all invited to write our prayer on a strip of paper (a piece of “hay”) and leave them in the crib.

There were mince pies and biscuits for everyone, afterwards.

Next, at 11.30 p.m. comes the Midnight Christmas Communion.

Getting Ready for Christingle

Yesterday afternoon a group of helpers, assisted by some very helpful children, turned 300 oranges into Christingles, ready for our Christmas Eve Christingle service.

Oranges, representing the world, were cored out at the top to receive the candles (surrounded in tinfoil for protection) representing Jesus as the Light of the World. Four cocktail sticks representing both the four corners of the world and the four seasons were added, together with fruit and sweets to represent God’s gift of the harvest. A red ribbon around the equator represented the blood that Christ shed as he died on the cross to bring people back to God.

Now the trays of Christingles are waiting for the service. Do join us for this service at 4.0 p.m. on Christmas Eve afternoon.
 

With the Children to Bethlehem

The second half of our service yesterday morning was a musical nativity play. It was wonderful to see the enthusiasm of the children as they recounted with acting and singing the greatest story ever told.

The children were at their best as not a word was lost – even for those sitting at the back of church. And the children and congregation both thoroughly enjoyed it.

A lot of people put in a lot of hard work, so thank you to them, but particularly to Megan Lloyd who was the driving inspiration. Well done!

The Christmas story, as told by the children, was the outworking of Isaiah’s prophecy of “Emanuel,” God with us, which had been the theme of the first half of the service, where the sermon had been given, appropriately, by our member, Emanuel Oladipo.

Our next Christmastide services are our Christingle service at 4.0 p.m. on Christmas Eve, followed by the Christmas Eve Communion Service at 10.30 p.m. and the Christmas Day Family Communion Service at 10.0 a.m. We would love to see you at one of these.

Follow us to Bethlehem

Yesterday, 15 December, was our annual Carol Service. Over 100 people gathered to remember again the Christmas story through readings and carols. There were a number of innovations this year. The service itself was a week earlier than usual, hoping that some people might be freer to come, away from the main Christmas festivities.

Other innovations were a greater proportion of congregational carols, including two modern ones. There was also an enthusiastic instrumental rendition of “Silent Night” performed by some of the children.

Whatever the innovations, the truth of the story of God become man in poverty at Bethlehem remains everlasting.

After the service, we remained in the church for mulled wine and mince pies. The Christmas season is really here!

 

Ding Dong Merrily at Sainsbury’s!

Sainsbury’s at Oadby invited churches to sing carols in their foyer this Saturday morning. St Pauls was pleased to respond and some 30 members of the congregation, including people who will be singing at our own carol service, tomorrow, arrived for an 11.0 AM start. The staff at Sainsbury’s made us very welcome and we enjoyed taking part. We sang the well-known Christmas carols and this seemed to be appreciated by shoppers.
 
We had tins with chocolates to give out (provided by Sainsbury’s), to wish people a “Happy Christmas.” But enormous numbers of people seemed to think that we were collecting. (Does having a tin in Sainsbury’s automatically mean that you’re a charity collector?!) As people dropped coins in the chocolate tins, a quick decision was made to send the money to "Embrace the Middle East," a Christian charity that works with children and needy people in the Middle East. Over £200 was donated.

To everyone who heard us, we‘d like to wish a “Very Happy Christmas.” Would you like to join us, tomorrow, 15 December at St Paul’s Church, Hamble Road, Oadby, at 7.0 PM, when we will be having our Carol Service.

Christmas at Barney’s

Every second Sunday of the month, to coincide with “All Together Church,” our all age service, hard-working volunteers lay on breakfast in the Barnabas Centre. For obvious reasons, this is called "Breakfast at Barney’s." There is always a choice of a full English cooked breakfast or a continental one.

To celebrate the Christmas season, "Breakfast at Barney’s" last Sunday was especially festive with Christmas crackers and the waitresses in seasonal costumes, including antlers with lights! The crackers duly revealed the party hats, though only the brave (including the vicar) were seen to wear them.

Over the Christmas season there will be events of a much more important nature. But this was an enjoyable start.

Preparing Together

For all Christian churches, Christmas is one of the highlights of the year, when you remember how Jesus, the Son of God, became one of us, as a baby at Bethlehem.

We are fortunate in Oadby that we have a tradition of the Christian churches working together, under the umbrella organisation called “Churches Together in Oadby.” So, together we prepare a Christmas Card, with details of all the services of all the churches. Then, all the streets are divided up and shared between the different churches.

So, if you’ve seen us wandering the streets of Oadby with piles of white envelopes and popping them through people’s doors, that was what we were doing.

If you’ve received a CTO Christmas Card, do look into it and see if there are services at which you’d like to join with one of the churches over this Christmas season.

Happy Christmas!

 

Christmas Assemblies

This week Lou (our Youth Worker) and I have been into Manor, the local High School to do Christmas Assemblies.
Lou used the following clip, which is excellent, to share the real meaning of Christmas with the kids and they were captivated watching it.
Here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OpWyZGTKyU