Happy Christmas everyone

"For unto us a child is born,

Here's wishing all my readers a very happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year.

12 Days of Christmas

Many thank to Linda Bates for posting this on FB earlier today - hilarious.

Kings Cross Nativity

I absolutely love this.

Beat Box Nativity

Love this twist on the Nativity.

Christmas Parties

Yesterday was a great day for me even if I rather overindulged. At lunch time, following a ministers meeting we enjoyed the kind hospitality of Rev'd Mike Crocket and his wife Jo when they prepared a wonderful lunch. Immediately after that I made my way to Shirley Women's Fellowship for their Christmas party. We enjoyed a very humorous monologue read by Jean entitle "I bought myself a present', we sang Christmas carols ad enjoyed lovely party food. After doing a few admin jobs in the afternoon I then went along to the Midi's Christmas party where we enjoyed wonderful cafe Jazz played by Adam Sanders and, you guessed it more party food. It was a wonderful evening which we brought to a close by singing Christmas carols together.

So all in all a great day even if I now need to work off a few pounds!

Bethlehemian Rhapsody

Thought you might like this little festive piece. Enjoy!

Breakfast Praise in Advent

Breakfast praise yesterday was just great. Apart from enjoying the bacon sandwiches we had a really good time of worship as we explored modern advent songs, lit candles and explored the idea of waiting for Christmas morning.

Then we went on to look at the advent themes of Hope,Peace, Joy and Love in a little more detail using poetry - mor specifically Haiku poetry. If you have not come across this before this is verse which is in 3 lines, the first line has 5 syllable the second 7 and the the third 5. I wrote a verse just to give an example of the style - I called my verse Christmas Eve and it went like this.

Frosty starlit night
Cant bear to wait much longer
The gift arrives - Love

Then I asked different groups to come up with Haiku verses based on the themes of advent. They were all exceptionally good and so I am posting them here for you all to enjoy.

Well done all of you and thank you for your grat contributions, budding poets that you are. Jx

Breakfast Praise

I was just about to tuck into this yummy bacon sandwich this morning when I remembered I should just post to say that Breakfast praise is on on Sunday morning at Shirley at 9.15. Lively worship and bacon rolls - You can't beat it. Jx

Pastoral Visitors Training - Bereavement

We had a great turn out for the pastoral visitors training which I led on Monday evening. Our subject was Bereavement and we covered this in some depth looking at the stages of grief and how we might best support those who are coming to terms with loss. I was very encouraged by how everyone engaged with the discussion and offered very valuable contributions. It was a good evening for learning, sharing and discovering and it was a privilege to lead this event. Many thanks to all who attended and for your helpful and open discussion. J x