Monkhouse School - La Nativité

We were delighted to welcome Monkhouse Primary School to St Hilda's Church for their Christmas nativity.

Children, staff, parents, grandparents and supporters packed the church and joined in with singing some of the carols.

The children were the stars. They sang tunefully and enthusiastically. They spoke with confidence and clarity. They all seemed to have enjoyed themselves as they told the  Christmas story.

And they did this all in French, as befits a school building international links and perspective.

Advent 2, 2014

For this Advent we have four different preachers who are all part of St Hilda's Church. There was no specific theme or brief beyond, of course, 'Advent' itself.

Advent 2 

Advent is a spiritual journey:

• John the Baptist's journey was from the settled community into the desert, where (like the prophets of old) he met God. 
• Jesus travelled in the opposite direction. After 40 days in the wilderness he journeyed around the area before setting out for the city, Jerusalem. More specifically he travelled into the heart of God's city, to the holiest place on earth: God's temple set on his holy mountain.
• Our journey is different again: to see a little baby. To see God in the smallest, most vulnerable, most dependant person. Our spiritual journey is to be born again, and to become like a little child. 

Paul Bagshaw
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We'll post brief notes of the sermons each week, just to give a flavour. As the weeks go by and Christmas comes closer we'll link each post to the others.

Advent 1: November 30th - Revd Michael Bass
Advent 2: December 7th - Revd Paul Bagshaw
Advent 3: December 14th - Carol Ann Shields
Advent 4: December 21st - Revd Jon Goode

Christmas Dinner

Enjoying a dance

Christmas dinner at St Hilda's was a wonderful evening.

We - about 65 of us - had an excellent roast turkey dinner with sprouts and carrots, sausage, stuffing and roast potatoes all supplied by Charles Nicholson's of Whitley Bay, and followed by individual trifles made by one of the church members.

Tucking in, and entertained by

Entertainment was provided by Glen Courtney from Durham who sang a range of popular songs from past decades. We joined in with some, danced to others, and listened to them all.

(He was very good, but I couldn't see any page to link to - if you know a relevant link for him I'd be happy to include it.)

Some of the workers ready and waiting for the crowd

Lottery prizes were won and distributed during the evening - including the very tasteful table decorations. Crackers were pulled, paper hats were worn, dreadful jokes were explained and everyone went home happy and full.

Thanks to all those who worked hard to who prepare everything and who cleared up afterwards - their labours were much appreciated.

Opinion: What is the Church of England like?

A Church Times article pointed to a YouGov page called 'profiler'. You can type in a label - "Church of England" perhaps, and the likes and characteristics of those who 'like' that label are compared to the general population.

So I looked at 'Church of England'  (1187 people), 'Church of Scotland' (139 people)  and 'Roman Catholic' (104 people). Methodist and Baptist don't appear on the list.

Politically CofE people were a little to the right of centre, CofS people a fraction to the left of centre, whereas the RCs were very strongly to the right. Readers of the Church Times, however, were significantly further to the right than Church of England members in general

For both RCs and the  CofE the North East was the third most significant region. (Curiously London, for the CofE, was significantly below the level that might be expected.)

Gender: all three churches have more than average men and fewer women. All had more in social classes ABC1 Age: all had fewer young people than expected but this was very strongly pronounced in the CofE.

Members' occupations were quite varied though The Church of Scotland had a significantly high number of members in the military, Roman Catholics had a strong showing in mining and quarrying, and the CofE in Civil Society and Charity.

And it's the Church of Scotland members who are the most comfortable financially - noticeably above the other two.

Lifestyle preferences vary considerably, as might be expected given the range of things to choose from. Unsurprisingly 'religion and  Spirituality' figure at the top of general interests for all three groups.

There was one further very significant difference between RCs and CofE on the one hand and CofS on the other in the  area of media. Whereas members of the first two churches spend 11-15 hours a week online, for CofS respondents it was 46-50 hours. And although RCs watch more television that the CofE, neither comes near the 50+ hours of the Church of Scotland.

Of course, what you make of all this is another questions altogether.  And in some areas numbers must have been quite small which makes any conclusion unreliable.

But: the favourite food of Church of England participants was liver and onions, jam tarts were favourite for Roman Catholics, and Church of Scotland participants went for Lorne sausage (by a long way). Church Times readers preferred faggots (links for US readers). Explain that.

Advent in South Africa

The Archbishop of Cape Town, of The Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Thabo Makgoba, has begun to put his advent reflections online.

Archbishop Thabo Makgoba

He has a tougher patch than most bishops in the UK.

His most recent post describes some of his recent travels and links to various activities in the archdiocese. 

It includes:

I was particularly moved by one of the events I attended this year, when I heard the story of a girl, Nadia, who is a survivor of human trafficking. 

She was abducted from her home at the age of 14. By the age of 16, she had had two children as a result of the abuse she suffered. As she told her story and read a “survivor’s poem” we were all reduced to tears. Her story was painful in itself but what was more piercing was when she said: 

And so Nadia’s story will remain with me as I continue to reflect on the Incarnate Christ in our lives, and His redemptive love, shared by Nadia, who has all the reason in the world to be angry but who challenged us to smile with her. 

“Please do me a favour – smile with me. Because your smile and your hope and your determination make me stronger. If you collapse and cry with me, you make my wounds too deep.”

I think that is in Nadia that our Christmas message lies this year: that despite being raped, exiled, abducted, trafficked and abused, the Christ Child emerges and offers us that hope which supersedes all human understanding.