'The Noise'

Thanks to Tim who's posted some pictures and reportage about 'The Noise' on the St. James Church Blog, and the Yeovil Blog. It's a local community festival, held last Saturday, and handily was in the park just across the road from our house.

The church spent the day giving out free drinks - probably 1000 or so juices, teas and coffees (until the percolator jammed up and the generator ran out of fuel so we couldn't use the kettle). Many thanks to those who came to help (ages 7 to 80), and for the team from Yeovil Community Church and Brympton Parish Council who did lots of the work and organising. Great fun, great weather, great event. Thankfully Tim's picture of me on the counter-intuitive bike isn't the one where I fall off.

Christmas Services

This is currently how the Christmas calendar is shaping up

28th Nov Christmas Dinner, St. Peters

6th Dec (Sun) Christingle 3.30pm, St. James
Weds 9th Dec 12.30 Yeovil College Carol Service
Thu 10th Dec 2pm Nativity, Westfield Infant School
Fri 11th 9.30am, 11am, 2pm Preston Primary Carols, St. James Church (done in 3 shifts as the church is too small to fit the children in all at the same time)
Sat 12th Wedding blessing

Sun 13th Cafe service Christmas celebration
Mon 14th Preschool carols, St. James
Tues 15th Nursery Christmas service, St. James
Weds 16th Parent and Toddlers Christmas party (am)
6.30pm Scout Carols, Abbey Community Centre.
Thurs 17th Abbey Pre-school nativity (am)
6pm Christingle, Brimsmore Garden Centre
Sat 19th 4pm Christingle, St. Peters

Sun 20th 6.30pm Carols by Candlelight, St. James
Mon 21 Westfield 'Stay and Play' Christmas story & prayers (am)
Christmas Eve 3pm & 5pm Nativity service, St. James (2 shifts for space reasons, see Fri 11th)
11pm Communion, St. Peters
Christmas Day 10.30m Family Communion, St. James

Just 20, plus normal services on Sundays on top of that. The next job is to work out how many Christmas talks I need to cover the above: there's unlikely to be too much overlap between, say, Yeovil College and the Scouts, but that will need to be different from the school talks as some of them will be in the Beaver and Cub groups.

Now is also a good time of year to wander round the local joke shop, scanning the shelves and muttering under my breath 'the Kingdom of God is like............' until something grabs me. In the days of Christmas Harry Potter movies it was easy, everyone had a common reference point. X Factor is a bit old hat now, and Doctor Who seems to be going for 'dark' in a big way, more Maunday Thursday than Christmas Eve.

PS thanks Phil, not quite sure what happened there!!

Christmas Services

For the record, here are the 18 Christmas services I'm involved with this month. If you're in the habit of praying (and even if you're not) then prayers would be appreciated - for stamina, clarity, energy and being able to remember exactly which one I'm doing! I'll probably need to prepare several talks, as well as sorting out orders of service, and liasing with readers, musicians, Christingle makers, minced pie chefs and hopefully God too.

Thurs 4th 11.30am Parent and Toddlers, St. Peters (songs & story in church) - wohoo! one down!

Weds 10th Yeovil College, 12.30pm
Thurs 11th 11-12noon, preschool nativity, St James'
Fri 12th 9.30am, 11am, 2pm Preston Primary school carols (in 3 shifts because our church is too small to hold them all at once)

Sun 14th 10.30am Cafe Service Advent celebration, Abbey Community Centre
3.30pm Christingle, St. James
Mon 15th 11am Reception service, Preston primary school
Tues 16th 11am Tots & Toys Christmas service, St. James
6pm Christingle, Brimsmore Garden Centre
Weds 17th 11.30am SSDC nursery, St. James
6.20pm St. James Scout Group carols, Abbey Manor Community Centre
Sat 20th 4pm Christingle, St. Peters

Sun 21 6.30 pm Carols by Candlelight, St. James
Mon 22nd 10-12 stay and play nativity, St Peters
Christmas Eve 3pm Nativity
11pm Holy Communion, St. James

so if blogging is a bit thin for the next couple of weeks, blame the Archangel Gabriel.....

Dual Site Worship

Last Sunday we had our first go at a twin-site morning service. Our church room is in an annexe to our, fairly small, parish church, and for years the seating capacity in church of 80 or so has been a glass ceiling. The church has bumped along against it, but it physically limits the number of people who can be part of the worship. We get new people pretty much every week, but their experience is of finding a church which doesn't have room for them.

For a couple of Sundays a month we use two venues: a traditional service in the church, and something more informal and child-friendly in the community centre 1/2 mile up the hill at the heart of the Abbey Manor estate. There's still a pretty good sense of church unity, but if we extended this to 3 or 4 Sundays a month, as well as stretching our resources past their limits, we might end up by accident with 2 separate churches.

It was a funeral which started the whole thing off. Last year Bob, our Treasurer and a great bloke, died very suddenly and we had around 250 people packed into St. James for his funeral. Roughly half ended up in the church room, watching a video relay of the service.

We realised that this was something we could do on Sundays too, so last Sunday we relayed the reading, a drama skit, and the sermon into the room, and had a worship leader and musicians in both venues. We kept the same running order, had childrens groups in a building next door which we hired (and turned out to be very suitable), and joined together for coffee afterwards.

Normally we get 80-85 for that service. 120 turned up, boosted by a sudden and unexpected visit from the local Christian boarding school, (20-odd 6th formers). So instead of filling 1 venue to nearly maximum, we filled both! Everything seemed to work, and we've installed a permanent cable from the church into the room which just needs plugging into a projector and speaker to relay things from the church.

It seems to be a good solution for lots of reasons:
- it keeps the church in one place, which is an important statement
- it minimises duplication: only 1 sermon and order of service need preparing, and only 1 set of childrens activities.
- it increases our seating capacity by 50
- nothing is lost: the 10.30 service is just as it always was, but if you want the same thing with comfy seating and a slightly more informal, intimate atmosphere (and the chance to get to the coffee first), there's an alternative.

In the long run we'll need to buy another projector, and have a team who know how to set it up so that the practical stuff doesn't keep falling on the same shoulders. But it was a good start.