… as if you need reminding!
Christmas really begins for us in the Benefice with our Crib and Christingle services. It is always a joy to see the churches full with excited children eagerly waiting for the arrival of the big day itself. Continue reading It’s nearly Christmas!
The Benefice has been pleased to support the work of a South Africa-based HIV charity, TOPSY, in recent weeks. TOPSY works in a remote rural area to support communities affected by HIV. In particular it operates 35 places of safety for orphans and vulnerable children, and assists affected families by providing home-based care, medication, and food parcels. Continue reading Thank you from TOPSY
Are you looking forward to Christmas?
From the middle of November, shops, media and advertising collude to convince us that Christmas is magical, full of joy and fulfilment. Cares are banished and laughing children reinforce the message that sadness and anxiety have no place in the festivities.
But for many reasons Christmas can be a difficult time of year. Perhaps a family bereavement, a broken relationship, loss of a job, or ill-health – there may be any number of reasons why people find it hard to join in with the festivities all around them. Many people find Christmas difficult as they are reminded of what they have lost or have never had, and we can feel very alone in the midst of all the celebrating and spending.
If you are not looking forward to Christmas, we would like to invite you to a special ‘Longest Night’ service on Wednesday 21st December at 7.00 pm in Enstone Church.
You will find space and time for quietness and reflection in the busyness of the Christmas season, and through music, readings and prayers that will focus on the true message of Christmas – God’s gift of hope and reconciliation to a hurting world, in the form of a vulnerable baby, born to shine a light into our darkness.
It’s our privilege to offer a space where the reality of life with its grief and pain does not have to be left at the church door but can sit alongside the hope and light which is the real heart of Christmas.
The service will last for about 40 minutes. All are welcome – no church experience necessary.
The discussion at the first of this year’s Advent Suppers focused on the challenge of forgiveness. We regularly pray that we may be forgiven as we forgive others and sometimes it is easy to forgive – but there are times when it is hard, even impossible. So how does the Bible help us understand how we might approach forgiveness? To help our discussion, we read some news stories including two about Eva Kor, a concentration camp survivor who was able to forgive the unforgivable when others would not or could not. We watched Rob Bell’s video ‘Luggage’ in which he argues that forgiveness is as much to do with setting ourselves free as it is lifting the burden of others. A lively discussion followed that ranged over a variety of personal experiences and produced some memorable mental images including filing cabinets, dead balloons and horse jumps!
Unfortunately time didn’t allow us to explore some of the wider questions, such as how forgiveness relates to desire for revenge, whether it means condoning bad behaviour and how it might differ from reconciliation. We plan to organise a discussion group next year to give us an opportunity to discuss some of these questions, maybe in the form of a book club. The Brothers Karamazov, anyone?
If you would like to look at the materials we used you can download them here. You can also find a link to the Bell video we watched.
If you haven’t signed up but would like to join us for the second and third Advent Suppers, please let Mark know by signing up here
Click on image for a larger copy
During Advent families from villages of the Benefice take part in a Posada. Posada – Spanish for “shelter” – is a custom that originated in Mexico where nativity sets of Mary and Joseph visit a different family or place every night between Advent Sunday and Christmas Eve. Our “Posada” consists of a knitted Joseph, Mary and a much loved Donkey.
Inspired by this custom, Rebecca Abrey has written and illustrated a children’s story book that tells the tale of the of a little knitted donkey’s journey and the fun that he had along the way. You can see a few of the pages below.
Copies are available to purchase at £6 [£7.50 with postage].
£1 from each sale goes to The Children’s Society.
Since 2001 TOPSY has made a significant difference to the lives of thousands of HIV-affected children, women and men living in a poor rural area of South Africa. TOPSY UK’s main aim is to raise funds and awareness to aid the work of its namesake in South Africa, TOPSY SA, where the recent focus of their work has been for the holistic care of orphaned and vulnerable children; the provision of food security to communities threatened by malnutrition; and income generation to help alleviate poverty.
Women from the communities produce a wide range of beadwork including a most appealing Christmas range of small decorations featuring stars, angels and Christmas Trees. Attractively priced at between £1 and £3, items will be available to buy over coffee after our 10am services, and on Sunday 4 December one of the charity’s trustees has been invited to give a brief introduction to the work of the charity after the service Spelsbury. Items will also be available at the Christmas Bazaar, Tiddy Hall, Ascott on 9 December, 6 – 10pm. Do support this very good cause!
Testing, Testing, Transforming lives
Outreach, Ownership, Opportunities for the future
Prevention, Provision, Participation, Progression
Social care, Skills, Self-Sufficiency in Communities
Young lives are nurtured through education and care
More information at www.topsyfoundation.org.uk or for sales of the decorations please call 07811 361304
The Revd Dr Nicholas Buxton (you might just remember him as Nick with the long hair, one of the retreatants on the 2005 TV series The Monastery) is a priest in Newcastle upon Tyne and the author of a very readable book about ‘Meditation and modern life’ called The Wilderness Within. Reacting to an article on Anglican-Quaker relations, he recently wrote of a predecessor of his who 100 years ago introduced the practice of silent prayer and went on, as Canon of Winchester Cathedral, to write an account of his encounters with Quakerism, published as The Fellowship of Silence in 1917. In it he relates how he once met someone in church who did not otherwise attend services, but came to the silent-prayer meetings and had brought no less than 30 of his colleagues in a nearby office with him!
It was a very special evening on Sunday 23 October when we welcomed Bishop Colin for the well-attended confirmation of three Benefice members: William, Bel, and Ilona. Continue reading Confirmation Service 2016
Chase Benefice 