December2014

www.keresleychurches.org.uk

Our Community

December 2014 / January 2015

50p

Celebrate the reason for the

season! Your local churches invite you to our Christmas

events...

Sat 6th December

Christmas Fayre 12-2pm Light lunch @ St Thomas’ Hall Wickham Close

Tea, Coffee & mince pies 10am-1pm @ ICCkeresley Greens Rd

Fri 12th / Sat 13th 7pm

Sun 14th December 4pm

Panto ’A Dickens Nativity’ @ ICCkeresley Donations to Coventry Myton Hospice

Sunday 14th December

Family Carols & Nativity 10.30am @ St Thomas’ Church

Messy Christmas Craft, food, Bible story & praise 2pm-4pm @ Keresley Village Church

Saturday 20th December

Carols on the Green 4pm Rathbone Close with refreshments afterwards @ Keresley Village Church

Sun 21st December

Coffee ‘n’ Carols 5.00pm @ ICCkeresley

Carols by Candlelight 6pm @ St Thomas’ Church

CHRISTMAS EVE

Crib Service 3pm@ St Thomas’ Church

Midnight Communion 11.30pm@ St Thomas’ Church

CHRISTMAS DAY

Celebrations for all ages 10am-11am:

@ St Thomas’ Church (with Holy Communion)

@ Keresley Village Church (with Holy Communion)

@ ICCkeresley Christmas Praise

Parish Calendar 2

Local News 3

The gift of Christmas unwrapped

4

Christianity explored 5

St Thomas’ past 6

“We saw . . and we came”

7

Parish Register 7

Children and Young people

7

Mouse page 8

Rudolph! 8

Inside this issue:

The Word of God, Jesus Christ,

on account of his great love for

mankind, became what we are

in order to make us

what

he is himself.

Irenaeus

D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 4 / J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5 P a g e 2

Sunday 11th

9am St Thomas Holy Communion. Mark Norris

10.30am St Thomas Holy Communion and Baptism. Mark Norris

10.30am KVCC Holy Communion and Covenant Service. Carol Foyn

Sunday 18th


10.30am Family Worship. All-age worship team

10.30am KVCC Holy Communion.

Sunday 25th



10.30am KVCC Morning worshp. Steve Medley

February Sunday 1st


10.30am St Thomas All-age worship

10.30am KVCC Holy Communion

P a g e 2

Services at St Thomas’ and Keresley Village Community Church

Refreshment for all

Tuesday afternoons, 1.30-2.30pm in the Galilee Room.

Fortnightly

If you need transport or would like to request prayers, please contact Margaret Bosworth on 7633 7932

leaving a message if necessary with your name and telephone number and she will

ring you back.

Sunday Morning Activities at St. Thomas’ Church at 10.30am for Children and Young People (during term time) 1st Sunday

Family Service in Church 2nd, 4th and 5th Sundays

3-11s, Sunday School in Galilee Room, 11+, Pathfinders in the Church Hall. All join the service at the Peace

3rd Sunday All ages start in Church

House group meetings -

Tuesday evenings. Details from the parish office or see Clare Fletcher.

Wednesday evenings, 2nd Wednesday of the month at Jo Goodwin’s house.

December Sunday 7th


10.30am St Thomas Holy Communion. Mark Norris

10.30am KVCC Holy Communion. Steve Medley

Sunday 14th


10.30am St Thomas Nativity Service. Sunday school

10.30am KVCC Morning Worship. Steve Medley and John Parnham

2pm KVCC Messy church. The message of Christmas

Sunday 21st


10.30am St Thomas Holy Communion. Mark Norris

10.30am KVCC Holy Communion. Steve Medley

6pm St Thomas Carols by Candlelight

For Christmas Eve and Christmas Day see page 1 Sunday 28th

10am St Thomas Holy Communion. Note: only one service at St Thomas’ today

10.30am KVCC Morning Worship. Local arrangement

January Sunday 4th

9am St Thomas Holy Communion

10.30am St Thomas All-age worship. New Year

10.30am KVCC Morning Worship. Steve Medley

O u r C o m m u n i t y P a g e 3

Christmas Choir

The Carol Service is on Sunday 21st December and there will be a Christmas choir to lead the singing. Remaining rehearsals are:

Saturday 6th December, 10am Friday 12th or Saturday 13th December, to be agreed Saturday 20th December, 1.30pm (provisional time)

If you are interested in being part of the choir please contact Heather Hudson on 76338775, or turn up on the day.

From the Family Album

The Jewish Feast of Shelters (or Tabernacles) has two purposes.

First, it celebrates the fruit harvest; second it remembers the

time that the Israelites spent in the desert. Alongside an

opportunity to celebrate the rich variety of God’s provision with

exuberant joy, the Feast of Shelters also involved families

building temporary shelters as a reminder of the time the

people were living in the desert as a nomadic people.

We explored this theme at our All age Harvest service.

Produce round the font All-age worship. Building a

shelter with a roof of branches.

Harvest Festival 2014

Christian Aid distributes emergency

food aid to quarantined homes in

Ebola ‘hotspots’

Christian Aid has delivered emergency food and hygiene kits to some of the most vulnerable families under quarantine in two of Sierra Leone’s Ebola ‘hotspots’ in order to prevent families from starving.

Pregnant women, single mothers, people living with HIV, the elderly and young children were among the 2,100 quarantined residents being targeted in the eastern Kailahun district and in the rural Freetown suburb of Waterloo. The kits contain enough food to give a family a balanced diet for two weeks, including oil, tinned fish, rice, onions and powdered milk. They also include essential hygiene materials.

With the national death rate now exceeding 1,000 and the infection rate rising sharply, Christian Aid is working with local health teams to identify the ‘at-risk’ households in quarantined areas. Since the outbreak began, Christian Aid partners have trained hundreds of local volunteers to reach 1.2 million people in Sierra Leone.

To donate to Christian Aid’s Ebola response visit

www.christianaid.org.uk/ebolacrisis

Thank you to all who continue to donate food. The last couple of weeks have added 20kg to our stocks. This month we particularly need:

Sugar 500g and

1kg

Jam

Instant mashed potato

Tea bags, 40s

Longlife fruit juice

Tinned tomatoes

Pasta sauces

Tinned puddings

Custard, tin or

carton

biscuits

http://www.christianaid.org.uk/ebolacrisis

D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 4 / J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5 P a g e 4

The Rev Paul Hardingham meditates on the ‘wrapping’ in which Jesus was given to us…

If you run out of wrapping paper this Christmas, you can take some birthday wrapping paper and simply add ‘Jesus’ after Happy Birthday! Up until the end of the nineteenth century, brown paper was generally used for wrapping Christmas presents. Then in 1917 Joyce Hall, who ran a stationery store in Kansas, ran out of brown paper at Christmas. In desperation, she sold French envelope lining paper instead, and the rest is history! The true gift of Christmas is Jesus, God’s Son born in human form. But how did God gift-wrap him? The wrapping he chose tells us a lot about the gift inside.

Wrapped in humanity: Christmas reminds us that God came to dwell with us in human form as a baby. For Jesus, ‘who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.’ (Philippians 2:6-7).

Jesus was humanly gift wrapped, because God wanted to enter fully into our world, to reveal the immensity of his love for us and that we could know the eternal God personally. You have to be divinely human and earthy present to do that! This was no ordinary gift wrap because he was no ordinary baby.

Wrapped in poverty: Jesus’ birth graphically illustrates how he was born in poverty. The stable or cave with its animals, smells and straw was not easy! ‘For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.’ (2 Corinthians 8:9).

The poverty in which Jesus was wrapped is significant. The swaddling cloths could have been strips of cast-off clothing, or they may have been taken from linen that was carried on long journeys by travellers in case of death. This powerfully reminds us that Jesus was born to die, wrapping himself with our own sinfulness. This was not the gift wrap of a king, yet only the King of kings allowed himself to be gift wrapped in this way! Through his poverty we are rich, as he offers us forgiveness and a new relationship with God.

The envelope with French lining carries this great Christmas message. The plain exterior looks similar to any other (the humanity of God), yet the inside dazzles with colour and beauty, reflecting the glory of God himself!

The Gift of Christmas Unwrapped

And Matthew 2 has nothing to do with astrology or horoscopes. It connects with the supernatural happenings in nature that highlighted each stage in the life of Jesus – the dove (his baptism), the shining light (transfiguration), the darkness and earthquake (his death), the cloud (his ascension). Hence the star

around the time of his birth.

So….“We saw… and have come.”

There are those who see – but don’t ‘see.’

It took Gentile visitors to shame Jerusalem and its leaders. Every generation has to be educated afresh

about Jesus Christ, the world’s Messiah!

(Continued from page 7) We saw . . . and we came There are those who see - but don’t come.

All saw the star, and the local scribes knew the prophecy of Micah 5:2 that the new King would come from Bethlehem – but ironically it was the

Gentile visitors who alone made the pilgrimage.

There are those who do see - and do come.

From Herod onwards – right up to today – murderous efforts are made to wipe out all reminders of the Babe of Bethlehem. But in the current unprecedented and astonishing advance of evangelism world-wide, the international worshippers of Jesus form the widest and

fastest-growing family of belief ever!

O u r C o m m u n i t y P a g e 5 O u r C om m u n i t y P a g e 5

? Maybe you went to church when you were

younger, or maybe you’ve never been.

? Perhaps you have lots of questions to ask,

or perhaps you’d rather just sit and listen.

? You might think of yourself as a confused Christian or a convinced atheist, or somewhere in between…

Whoever you are, whatever you’re thinking, Christianity Explored is a place for you to explore what life is all about.

Christianity Explored is an informal, relaxed seven-week course for anyone who wants to think about what Christianity says about the meaning of life. It’s designed to help you think about the big issues.

It’s run by ordinary, local people and looks at the person at the heart of the Christian faith – Jesus Christ.

You can ask any question you want and meet other people who are on a similar journey to you.

What happens?

Weekly evening sessions will start at 7.30pm, finish by 9pm and will include

A cuppa and a chance to chat and relax Time for you to find out for yourself what the

Bible says about Jesus Christ and the meaning of life.

A short DVD or talk focusing on a part of Jesus’ life.

A discussion time, when you can ask questions or sit and listen to others.

You can say as much or as little as you like. And don’t worry, you’ll never be asked to sing, pray or read out loud. You don’t need to know anything about the Bible either.

And if you need to miss a week, that’s OK too. And you can pull out any time you like, for any reason.

Christianity Explored is completely free, and you’ll never be put under pressure to do anything you don’t want to.

Come along to the first week to see what it’s like and then decide whether you want to continue. Just let us know to expect you…

If daytime sessions would suit you better, just let us know!

For more information, or to let us know you’re coming, contact the Parish Office on 7633 2717

D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 4 / J a n u a r y 2 0 1 5 P a g e 6 P a g e 6

A nd so we draw the year to a close with the news of the Parochial working party from December 1914 and the vicar’s letter from January 1915.

Generous Father,

At this busy time of year, help us to remember the important things. In all the rush of sending cards and giving presents may we make time to be still, to acknowledge your sending and giving of the greatest gift of all, Jesus. Thank you that he didn’t stay in the stable in Bethlehem, but lived and died and became the Saviour of all who put their trust in him. May we receive afresh the gift of your presence with us in Jesus, now and for ever, with great thankfulness. In his name, we pray. Amen.

By Daphne Kitching

O u r C o m m u n i t y P a g e 7 O u r C om m u n i t y P a g e 7

Baptisms

23rd November Bella Ann Hunt

Cremation

11th November Doris May Jackson aged 94 of Copthorne Lodge

20th November Frank Sugrue aged 92 of Foster Road

Uniformed Groups Meet in the Church Hall :

9th Rainbows, Mondays, 6-7pm 13th Brownies, Mondays, 6.00 - 7.30pm 9th Brownies, Wednesdays, 6.00 - 7.30pm 9th Guides, Thursdays, 6.30 - 8.30pm

Meet in the Scout Hut: 41st Cubs, Mondays, 6.45 - 8.30pm 41st Scouts, Tuesdays, 7.00 - 9.00pm 41st Beavers, Fridays, 6.00 - 7.30pm (for 6-8 year olds )

Youth Essence Thursdays 7.30pm to 9pm in the Galilee Room, School year 9 upwards

Regular Activities in the Church Hall NB the Church Hall is not usually available for late night Discos

Pre-school Playgroup: Mondays to Fridays, 9am - 11.30am and 12.30pm – 3pm

Brownies, Guides, Cubs and Scouts meet on weekday evenings. See above for details.

First Steps . . . with Jesus For babies and pre-school children with their parents and

carers, weekly in term time

Mondays 1.30-2.30pm Meets in the Galilee Room,

Wednesdays 1.30-2.45pm. Meets at Keresley Village Community

Children and Young People Parish Register

Trailblazers Children's Club Mondays 5-6pm at Keresley Village Community Church

TWEENs Thursdays from 6pm to 7.15pm. For years 7-9. High energy entertaining!

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“We saw… and we came” “We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him” Matthew 2:2

The visit of the wise men is celebrated on January 6th - the season of ‘Epiphany’ (Greek: the ‘Manifestation’ of Jesus to the non-Jewish world of the Gentiles). These eastern visitors highlight the theme of Jesus as Universal Saviour. They ‘saw his star in the east’; that is, it was from the place where they lived - in the east -

that they saw the star.

If ‘the star’ had been simply a combination of, say, Jupiter and Halley’s comet, then these learned men from Mesopotamia might have been interested and even excited – but it would have hardly have signified to them the one, unique and life-changing event that required a three hundred-mile journey! Don’t even try to reduce the star of Bethlehem down to something like a conjunction of planets – or you will never grasp what happened. This was a supernatural event, greater even than the crossing of the Red Sea or the gathering to heaven of a godly man in a fiery

chariot.

These were learned men – but also reverent and prayerful. It is probable that they would have read of the future ‘star’ and ‘sceptre’ that would arise in Israel – foretold centuries earlier in Numbers 24:17 by Balaam, also a Gentile from their own

area (Numbers 22:5).

(Continued on page 4)

Documents

December2014