Church News – December 2024

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Welcome to our December issue of our Newsletter.  It’s coming to the end of another year and what a year it has been, with world events going from bad to worse. 

As well as the escalating war in Ukraine and the Middle East, we have had unprecedented wildfires, storms and floods across the world. Millions are displaced, millions are homeless and hungry. Meanwhile, the cost-of-living crisis continues, and food banks in the UK look set to be overwhelmed. Many of us now are facing a hard winter, with seemingly little to be cheerful about.  

And yet, and yet – we celebrate Advent and know that the message of Christmas is just as real for us today as it was 2000 years ago, and it can still bring us hope and joy for our long-term future. Emmanuel has come, the Prince of Peace, the Son of Righteousness. God IS with us. And HIS kingdom will have no end. 

In our little corner of the world we continue to provide a welcoming place for the people of Dukinfield and surrounding areas.  We hold our worship at 11 a.m. every Sunday, Dementia Warriors, Brownies and Rainbows on Mondays, Mums and Tots on Tuesdays, Beavers, Cubs and Scouts on Wednesdays as well as our Food Hamper Project providing essential supplies to the local needy each Thursday of every week of the year.  We have so much to be grateful for.  Why not spread the word to your family and friends and invite them along soon so they can see what we have to offer.  If we each bring one extra person to our Sunday services,  we will double our congregation’s attendance— now, that’s an interesting idea!

God bless,  Sue Selby

NEWS

We have been advised that Br James Woolford has been asked and has agreed to provide support to our congregation whilst Sr Patsy is on sick leave.  He is due to start this temporary  support from 1st January.   He is also ministering to our congregation in Baildon, Yorkshire and so we need to remember that he isn’t solely ‘ours’ but we are happy to welcome him.

Besses Band

Make sure you purchase your tickets for this now traditional start to Advent.

Bible Study

We are pleased to announce that Bible Study will restart on Tuesday, 21st January at 7 p.m. on Zoom.

Prayer for December 2024

Father, the days are short; darkness deepens in December and this year it seems to reflect the darkness in so many parts of the world. We think especially of the land You came to, all those years ago, and other nearby lands where so many are suffering.

Father, thank you that Jesus came into the world as Your Light; that He shines today as brightly and powerfully as He did then, and will do forever.

Help us to open our hearts and minds to allow His light to fill us with the assurance that, no matter what is going on, we are safe in Him.

Thank you that, in Jesus, You have conquered death and darkness; that one day, everyone will bow before Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, whose Kingdom shall never end.

Help us, in thankfulness and love, to share Your Christmas Light and Hope and Joy. Hallelujah!  In Jesus’ name. Amen.

By Daphne Kitching

Christmas Geese

The story is told of a farmer who didn’t believe in Jesus. One snowy Christmas Eve, his wife was taking their children to a service at their local church. He refused to come saying: ‘Why would God lower Himself to come to Earth as a man? That’s ridiculous!’ So, they left him at home.

During the evening the winds grew stronger, and the snow turned to a blizzard. He heard a series of loud thumps on the window. In the field near his house he saw a flock of wild geese. They had been migrating south when they got caught in the snowstorm. They were lost and stranded on his farm, with no food or shelter.The man wanted to help the geese and so he opened the doors of the barn, hoping they would go inside for shelter. But the geese didn’t do anything, despite the man’s efforts to move them. He made a breadcrumb trail leading to the barn and tried to shoo them toward the barn, but they only got more scared and scattered.

Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn: ‘Why don’t they follow me?!’ Then he realised: ‘If only I were a goose and become one of them, then I could save them.’ Finally, he understood the heart of the Christmas message. God has become one of us in Jesus. The eternal creator God has entered time and space as a baby, to show us who God is and how we can know Him.

This Christmas let’s celebrate again this amazing truth that we have a God who knows and can meet our needs in Jesus. ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel, which means ‘God with us’’. Matthew 1:23.

Christmas Quiz 2024

1. This year was a Leap Year. Were 1900 and 2000 Leap Years?

2. What is Whamaggedon?

3. Alan Bates hit the headlines in January. He shares his name with a famous actor, but why is he well known?

4. HRH Duke of Edinburgh met a special resident at St Helena in January who had also met his grandparents. Who is he?

5. A young actor, fresh out of drama school, was told by Arthur Lowe, “don’t worry if there’s not a lot of lines. They’ll come. In the meantime get yourself a funny costume and stand near me”. Who was the actor who passed away this year and starred in this classic sitcom?

6. Why did a family photo taken for Mothering Sunday lead to a lot of media speculation?

7. Why did North Korean television object to Alan Titchmarsh and his trousers?

8. How did a black cat called Matins get into trouble on 2nd June 1953 at Westminster Abbey

9. Where was the Carnation Revolution fifty years ago?

10. What product manufacturer (a byword in usefulness) announced in 2024 they would introduce the first bladeless version?

11. Which Oxford Don applied unsuccessfully to be a code breaker in the 1940s? there was a note by his name “keen”

12. Where is the Elephant and Bear Line?

13. What is Election purdah?

14, Why might you be looking forward to not looking back in anger?

15. What types of special judges were cancelled after 147 years’ service and replaced electronically?

Answers in the January Newsletter.

No Room?  On the Contrary

All over the world, doors are being slammed shut this Christmas. As the wars in the Middle East, in Ukraine and in Sudan rage on, millions are losing their homes and places of safety. Elsewhere, hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and would-be immigrants are on the road, seeking refuge anywhere they can find it.

Meanwhile, in recent years vast numbers of Christians have been forced to flee from their ancient homelands in Syria and Iraq. They mirror the Holy Family’s escape into Egypt. Every time yet another infant dies violently, it is a reminder of the first century massacre of babies in the Bethlehem region.

So perhaps this year, one carol will be sung with particular poignancy. It retells the message of angels, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom His favour rests” and continues: 

Yet with the woes of sin and strife,

The world has suffered long;

Beneath the angel strain have rolled,

Two thousand years of wrong;

And man, at war with man, hears not

The love song which they bring:

O hush the noise, you men of strife,

And hear the angels sing.

The angels’ goodwill message will persist despite our clamour, for it proclaims God’s all-embracing and eternal welcome. Whatever is happening on earth, Heaven’s doors are ever open: it is home for everyone. The final biblical vision is of an all-encompassing city: “On no day will its gates ever be shut… the glory and honour of the nations will be brought into it.”

Jesus, for whom there had been no room at the inn, taught that God’s kingdom is home for every race: “I say to you that many will come from the East and the West, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.”  He reassured those anxious about the future: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms…”

No room in heaven?  Don’t you believe it!