Sharing some thoughts

I read a very festive tweet this week from someone who commented whilst clearing up after a church event, “you can tell it’s Christmas, there’s no room in the bin”… Christmas is quite rightly a time of great celebration, it’s a time when we especially remember an event that changed history, a time when we celebrate that God cared about us enough, and still cares about us enough, to come into a pretty damaged world to offer the possibility of making things right for everyone…   After saying that it’s also important to remember that for some people Christmas isn’t easy – for some it can be a reminder of happy times which seem to have ended, or people that are missed, or loneliness, or poverty, addiction or a lack of a home… Further afield it can be massively challenging for Christians living in certain parts of the world, not least Bethlehem itself, where life can be tough not just at Christmas time but throughout the year… We can paint a very different picture from some of

A little girl was taking an evening walk with her father. She looked up at the stars and exclaimed; "Oh, Daddy, if the wrong side of heaven is so beautiful, what must the right side be!"   I think we all wonder occasionally at the wisdom of children but also recognise how their innocence can sometimes remind us of wonderful truths. In the same way when we look at the bible we can often find wisdom for the day. We’ve now moved to the second Sunday in Advent and we are thinking a lot about John the Baptist… This rather strange man carried an incredibly powerful message and for centuries since he has been held up as one of the great messengers of God, but I wonder how he would be received today if he appeared and what he might look like. Then he was dressed in camel’s hair clothing with a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild honey and yet there was something about him that drew crowds from far afield to listen to his message. That would certainly ha

Happy new year! We have begun a new year in the Church. It seems a bit confusing that the Church’s year starts before Christmas but actually it makes sense. This is because in this year we are beginning by getting ourselves ready to greet our Saviour at Christmas. Advent always seems a strange time, it is the time when we are looking to start again, we are getting ready. Every new year people come up with different ideas of how they might change, or new things they may take up. Well we all know that the beginning of December is not the best time to take up a new hobby but in the Church it is. In our new year of the Church we are reminded at the beginning of the year what we are looking to do, which is to welcome Jesus. At the beginning of our year we are waiting for Jesus and this waiting isn’t just about sitting down and twiddling our thumbs, it is about doing something different, something in preparation. As we wait, we are of course waiting for Christmas but we are also wai