Today, some 45 people enjoyed the final carol service in our Step into Christmas series as we looked at the subject Christmas: The Purpose.
The service was once again hosted by Phil Bray and began with the carol Hark the herald angels sing followed by prayer.
The second carol was Away in a manger and was followed by the final installment of the Christmas Quiz which ultimately ended in victory for the Mince Pies.
The third carol was Infant Holy, infant lowly and was followed by playing the two video clips below:
Our fourth carol was O come all ye faithful and after this, Paul Cogger came up to speak.
Paul used examples of different activities which keep us busy over Christmas, as below, before gradually fading out the pictures to leave the cross as the real purpose of Christmas.
Paul closed in prayer before our final carol which was I cannot tell why He, whom angels worship.
As in previous weeks, we followed the service with hot drinks and mince pies.
Following the cancellation of last year’s Young People’s Carol Service due to the snow, it was good to meet up with others once again.
We had around 60 people in for this years carol service which was hosted by Phil Bray and Brian Sparks and was dubbed #YPCarols on Twitter. We were also pleased to welcome Iain Bailey as our speaker for the evening.
Below are some tweets from the night:
Just 5.5 hours to go until tonight's #YPCarols! We'll try and live tweet tonight as well! See you there.
Today we held the second in our series of Carol Services known as Step into Christmas.
We had around 50 people at the carol service again, similar to last week.
The service was once again hosted by Phil Bray and began with Joy to the world followed by prayer. Phil welcomed those attending and explained about the service being part of a series.
The second carol was Silent Night which was followed by the second installment of the Christmas Quiz which pitted Christmas Puddings against Mince Pies and involved those attending coming up to collect an envelope from the Christmas tree. Inside the envelope was a card with points which the team could score if they answered a question correctly.
The third carol was See Him lying on a bed of straw. This was followed by an excellent solo by Judith Hamm, singing O Holy Night while accompanying herself on the guitar.
The final carol, before Victor came to speak, was While Shepherds watched their flocks by night.
Victor spoke on Christmas: The Person and brought out verses showing that Jesus was a real man as well as being God. He also displayed verses explaining that Jesus is the Son of God and our Saviour.
As last week, we finished with coffee and mince pies in the back room.
Step into Christmas article in Maidenhead Advertiser 011211
Following an extensive campaign including creation of posters, invitations, social media and even a press-release for the Maidenhead Advertiser, we were pleased to welcome over 50 people for the first in our series of carol services in December entitled Step into Christmas.
The opening service was hosted by Phil Bray and began with the carol O little town of Bethlehem which was followed by prayer.
Phil ran through the titles of the different services coming up and also mentioned a little about the planned Family Services for 2012 – the first of which will take place on 15th January at 11.30am. The topic for the year will be Celebrations.
A sneak at some of next year's planned Family Services
Our second carol was It came upon the midnight clear.
After the carol, we had the first part 0f an Advent Calendar themed Quiz. There were 24 envelopes hung on the Christmas tree and two teams (Christmas Puddings and Mince Pies) each took it in turns to send someone up to choose an envelope. Each contained a unique number from 1 to 24 and a chocolate coin.
The number inside was linked to a question about Christmas, from the Advent calendar on the screen, with the points determined by the value of the number. Higher value numbers generally meant that the questions were likely to be harder.
The Advent Calendar Quiz
At the end of the quiz the running points totals were: Mince Pies 52 points and Christmas Puddings 46 points. This will continue for the next two weeks before prizes are awarded!
Our third carol was The Servant King, also known as From heaven you came.
After this, David Angell came up for a couple of minutes to talk about ‘What Christmas means to me‘. David brought out his fondness to listening to Carols from Kings each year on Christmas Eve as well as touching on the real reason for Christmas.
After David had finished we sang Once in royal David’s city before Alan came up to speak on the opening topic – Christmas: The Plan.
Alan brought out, using the example of the work of Canadian artist Lewis Lavoie, that God viewed Christmas by looking at it from the ‘Big Picture’. Alan ran through numerous examples in the Old Testament where it confirmed the timing and location where the birth of Jesus would take place and the fact that it was all part of God’s plan for Christmas.
He also looked at the practical issues concerning the people involved in the story before finishing by reminding people that although we think of Jesus as a baby at Christmas, he didn’t stay that way and grew into a man who ultimately gave his life on the cross at Calvary.
After Alan had finished and closed in prayer, we enjoyed mince pies and other refreshments.
Everything seemed to work together well and we were encouraged by a positive beginning to the series of Step into Christmas. Next week we have Victor taking the subject of Christmas: The Person.
Great evening for our first #StepintoChristmas. Good turnout. Good message. Good food. Same again next Sunday at 5pm!
Our plans for the outreach in the High Street this morning were somewhat scuppered by the five inches of snow that fell during the morning.
The original idea was to spend 45 minutes in the High Street giving out invitations to the Candlelit Carol Service, as well as two or three giving a short word about Christmas. In addition, we had prepared some wordsearches and bubbles to give away to the children.
Following a short time of prayer, we decided to head through the snow into the High St and split our resources to have people at every entrance to the Nicholson’s Centre.
Maidenhead High Street in the snow
The snow was falling heavily and we decided to focus on handing out invitations to the Carol Service rather than anything else.
We were able to give away over 250 tracts and invitations to the Carol Service altogether, and although our original plans weren’t able to be completed, we felt that it was still a worthwhile exercise to have carried out and pray that there may be those who will come along tomorrow as a result.
Afterwards, we gathered in Costa Coffee to thaw out and review the exercise before heading back to Parkside to retrieve our cars buried in the snowy car park.
Parkside Christian Fellowship 