Third Sunday of Advent

Doing Nothing to Save Christmas
I preached roughly the same sermon at both All Saints' and St Mary's this morning. Those who have been following the blog over the past week will have recognised some of the references I made to Christmas Stress...
I retold the story of rats on amphetimines and spoke about "Party Friday" and the predicted rise in domestic violence during the Christmas period... This provided an opportunity to talk about the need to create space during the business of Christmas to connect with eternity - particularly for those who will be visiting our churches during the next week or so...
At All Saints' Rozi bravely decided to follow the sermon by dropping her planned intercessions and inviting us to keep five minutes of silence. It worked incredibly well - top quality silence!
It is really interesting how significant this felt, although it's hard to put it into words. The challenge is to create a similar sense of stillness for visitors. Can we find ways of allowing the "still small voice of God" to be felt in the bustle of Christmas services?....

Candlit Carol Services
My plan was to visit all three of our candlit carol services this afternoon. I failed - largely because I misread our own leaflet! - St Giles' had their service at 4:00pm not 6:30!
Although I didn't actually manage to sing carols in all three buildings, I did visit each of them in the course of an hour; starting at All Saints' passing by St Giles and finishing at St Mary's.
The music/singing group were on fine form at All Saints' with some well chosen readings and well rehersed songs... St Giles was shut - obviously... and St Mary's felt warm and welcoming - although the organ is still to be connected...
The best thing about this afternoon was the confidence of our local leaders. They are in charge, they're confident, they're creative, they're mission focussed and they're extremely good! A few years ago we limited the number of seasonal services according to the number of "ministers" we had. That's no longer the limiting factor... If we keep this up, the future will be extremely interesting...