It’s been a funny old weekend.
Friday I went to see a Christmas Crib festival at Layton Methodist Church in Blackpool. I’d driven past earlier in the day and whilst I’d heard of Christmas Tree festivals, a Christmas Crib Festival was a new one on me and so I had to investigate.
It was exactly what you would expect; a chapel full of a wide variety of traditional and not so traditional Nativity scenes. There were bought sets, homemade sets and so that were part one thing and part another; all different sizes and colours. There were people from the local community walking round and talking about the crib sets, talking about the Christmas story; what a simple and effective piece of witness to the people of Layton.
Yesterday I attended a Christmas Tree Festival at Poulton Methodist Church and though I spent most of the day sitting down (more on that in a moment) I did enjoy seeing all the different trees, decorated to a theme of ‘The Movies’. Fortunately one of the movies selected was ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’ and so witnessing was very much to the fore with several trees telling the gospel story.
Pride of place at the Christmas Tree Festival was an eighteen foot tall knitted Christmas Tree. Supported by an internal scaffold the tree was stitched together out of separate knitted woollen leaves and decorations. After Christmas the tree will be taken apart and the leaves stitched together to make blankets. This was a real community effort and testimony to what can be achieved when people work together. Just imagine what could be achieved for Christ if all who call themselves Christians could work together celebrating all that we hold in common rather than arguing about what sometimes separates us!
The thing that has bound the weekend for me is what seems to be some kind of virus. Not quite a bad cold its giving me a bad cough, achy chest and occasional light-headedness. Also leaving me very tired! Despite this I’ve had a good weekend and been blessed by two church festivals. The church at Poulton was very full on Saturday and at one point sardines would have felt at home, so tightly packed were those visiting the church. It was wonderful to see all those people in a church building, talking to Christian people and hearing Christmas carols sung with meaning and sincerity.
Thank you, God, for such a blessed weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment