We are now half way through Advent. This week John the Baptist makes another appearance, not now as the last of the prophets but as the first of the evangelists:
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John is very much the true spirit of Advent. Repent! Get a new mind! God is coming into the world and we are not ready to meet him!
In this spirit we celebrated a wonderful candle lit Advent Carol service on Saturday night:
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It’s so good to see this service becoming a local fixture, and this was the biggest and best yet.
But we have read to the end of the Advent story. We know God is coming not as our judge but as our saviour. Christmas joy keeps breaking through.
Thus last weekend found a group of us, with some neighbours from the YWAM house, singing carols at the King’s Head Christmas Fair:
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We’ll be going out again on Monday (15th). If you’d like to come and sing carols around the Alton, come and join us at church at 1pm.
The church school were getting into the Christmas spirit too this week, with the younger children putting on their Nativity, always a highlight:
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Then next week we really are into Christmas. We will have Nine Lesson and Carols on Sunday 21st (6.30pm). Then all the other lovely things you would expect…
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Thanks so much to everyone who took a bundle of postcards to distribute. If you have all delivered the ones you took, then around eight hundred have gone out. There will be more this Sunday!
But amidst all this excitement, and all our own personal preparations for Christmas, let’s keep hold of Advent to the extent of making sure to pause… from time to time… and simply …. LISTEN.
God says in Psalm 46, “be still and know that I am God.”
This would be a good thing to do every now and then between now and Christmas.
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Lastly, a few lovely things coming up in Roehampton:
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So many good things going on, and so much to look forward to.
Come, thou long expected Jesus!
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