Christmas travels

Back from Devon. It only took five hours - though it rained all the way. We had a fabulous break - lots of good food, lovely walks, great conversations, though sadly no surfing....

We bought a painting - it's for Linda's birthday in February really, but we'll probably hang it before then. It's a glorious small study of a blue cloth that changes shade and texture in different lights and from different angles.

Lots of writing to do this week as well as getting ready for Sunday (hopes and dreams for the coming year).

After hearing someone in the church I went to on Christmas morning wish Jesus a happy birthday - almost breaking into song in the process - I was so heartened by Michael Gorman's post that pointed out that Christmas is not Jesus' birthday, but the time we celebrate the incarnation of the Second person of the Trinity. It was a good to read a bit of sensible theology over the festive season.

In the post he says: 'Singing Happy Birthday to Jesus would not seem to engender devotion to the One we are called to follow so fully that it might lead to death—yet the Church remembers Stephen, the first martyr, on December 26, the day after Christmas. Singing Happy Birthday to Jesus reflects an understanding of Jesus as a cute little baby or little boy who could cause no trouble and do no harm. But that is not what Herod thought, so the Church remembers his slaughter of the innocents on December 28. In other words, the shadow of the cross is present in the Scriptural Christmas narrative, and in the Church’s way of framing its celebration, but it is absent from the “Happy Birthday, Jesus” mindset.'

Pretty much everything he's been posting through Advent has been top notch, so check him out here (you'll need to scroll down for the birthday post).

With all the hype that attended Douglas Campbell's big book on Paul, it's as well to remember that Gorman published a much briefer but immensely rich Pauline theology this year. Inhabiting the Cruciform God is one of my books of the year (though I've not quite finished it yet).

Reflecting on our carol service experience

We had a good day of carol services yesterday.

It kicked off with the biggest turn out at Messy Church in its year-long history - and this despite the atrocious conditions under foot. I didn't count but there could well have 70 people at the peak.

Two things stand out. The first is that there were a number of families who've not been before and the second is that a number of families stayed on for the all-age carol service. So we're making new friends and hopefully helping them explore the meaning of the Christian faith for families today.

Then at teatime we had a pretty full and very traditional carols by candlelight. This continues to be an event that attracts a good number of people who don't usually attend church. I lost count of the number of people I shook hands with who joked that they were once a year regulars.

The music was great, the service flowed sweetly with a reasonable number of people involved in one way or another and a number of people commented on how helpful and challenging the sermon was.

But I guess what stands out for me is the thought that this service above anything else we do is worship as entertainment. Now don't me get me wrong. This doesn't mean that the service is not worth doing. Lots of people, church goers and non-church goers alike, find much that is beneficial for them in it. But I wonder if there's a danger that it is just another feature of the traditional Bromley Christmas, up there with the office party, sherry and mince pies with neighbours, last minute shopping, menu planning to suit the tastes of everyone sharing all the meals that will be cooked over the festive season, etc.

My feeling is that the Advent Conspiracy has helped a number of us to think about how we celebrate Christmas this year in terms of what we buy, who we invite to parties and why. But I think we've a way to go.

So - and if this isn't a contradiction - I do feel that carols by candlelight is really good, positive and worthwhile but perhaps it does just allow people to come and do right by God at this one time of the year when the Christian story still resonates with a broad cross-section of the population, so that they don't need to engage with God at any other time of the year.

Maybe this contradiction is at the heart of all the public worship activities we do as a church but it's just thrown into particularly sharp relief at Christmas.

So, a question for next year is whether we can help everyone at our carol services to see the connection between this story and the celebration of it they gladly come at Christmas and their everyday, ordinary, January to November working and domestic lives.

Answers on a post card...

So, this is Christmas...

So far, Christmas has not been quite as frantic as previous years, though our grand daughter arrived on Wednesday afternoon and I've had lots of lovely distractions to deal with since then - and my productivity has plummeted! So, this might just be a state of mind!

In common with a lot of churches, we'll be busy this weekend. We have three carol services on Sunday plus an hour spent on the forecourt serving mulled wine, mince pies, tea and coffee to passers-by (it'll be interesting to see if the current lovely weather has any impact on the numbers)

We're also going to Starbucks on Monday evening to sing carols and other Christmas favourites at six to bring a little cheer to last-minute, late evening shoppers.

I've been enjoying more over-looked music - Florence and the Machine and Paloma Faith. Both their records are very listenable. And I've taken delivery of Alan Roxburgh's new book Introducing the Missional Church which I shall take away on my Christmas break to Devon. It looks pretty good.

Getting into the Advent Conspiracy

Planning for Advent this year, I came across the Advent Conspiracy. I'm probably late to the party here but just in case of you haven't come across this initiative, it's really worth checking out.

The brain-child of three American pastors (who says nothing good comes from across the pond?), Rick McKinley, Chris Seay and Greg Holder, the Advent Conspiracy aims to help Christians reclaim Christmas from consumerism.

Check out it's website here where you can download the neat trailer they've filmed for it plus a whole host of other resources. The book from Zondervan takes a bit of hunting down because not many have allocated to the UK market.

we'll be launching into in two week's time, using Christian Aid as the vehicle for our giving to those in need.

Rick McKinley, by the way, is the pastor of the church - Imago Dei - that Donald Miller is a member of. Miller is author of a number of books, one of which Blue Like Jazz, I'm just finishing. It's really good.

Happy Christmas

So, it'll be Leonard Cohen and Caravaggio who form the backdrop of the sermons this Christmas.

Cohen tonight, at our joint service with the URC, using the charting of Hallelujah (how surreal is that?) to allow me to talk about the second verse of Suzanne, the one that says of Jesus 'And when he knew for certain/only drowning men could see him/he said 'all men will be sailors then/until the sea shall free them.'

Caravaggio on Sunday: his wonderful nativity stolen from a Sicilian church 40 years ago that draws the eye to the light of the infant in the feeding trough. We'll be asking what difference does looking make?

Tomorrow it's why Christina Rossetti's In the Bleak mid-winter is my favourite carol.

And we're done. Another Christmas prepared for.

It just remains for me to say happy Christmas to all of you who pass this way - intentionally or by accident. Hopefully we'll talk soon.

Ah, I love Christmas!

We had a fabulous pre-Christmas gathering with good friends last night.

We ate wonderful Portuguese food, enjoyed much laughter, sang songs and reflected on why Christmas is such a special time of year.

It was church as it should be: no more than can fit around a dining table, conversation that ranges from the serious to the hysterical, all wrapped in prayer and genuine concern for one another.

Such a gathering brings us close to how church was in the New Testament. Of course, the culture is very different and we cannot go back. But the domesticity, intimacy and hospitality of the meal table embodies something close to God's heart.

Christmas is often seen as a family affair, which is ok. But really the heart of the story is a community affair. All kinds of people - individually and in groups - are invited to gaze in wonder at the baby in a feeding trough in an over-crowded Bethlehem home, where all the generations were rallying round to do what they could to welcome the new arrival and anyone who turned up was drawn into the circle of praise at what God was and is doing among us.

Ah, I love Christmas!