Welcome to our Renewing Hope Advent Calendar of stories, sent to recipients of Grapevine or Working Together. We invite you to open a story a day between now and Christmas Eve to open a window onto the ministry and mission in our Diocese. Please do share on with friends and family and neighbours!
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8th December
Like most Churches, the Upper Wylye Valley would normally have Crib Services on Christmas Eve and their churches would be full. But as our 8th window on our Advent Calendar reveals, this year they have had to think outside the box to make sure they are bringing a little Comfort and Joy to children young and old.
'See Him Lying On a Bed of Straw'
The Revd Jayne Buckles Upper Wylye Valley Churches
We all know that Christmas is about caring and sharing the joy of the season and there’s even more reason to do that this year. We knew we couldn’t have full churches due to social distancing, so the Ministry Team wondered what it could do.
We decided to have a Zoom Crib Service so we could all join in together. But the worry was that the children might find it rather boring. And as the highlight of our Crib Service is placing the Nativity figures in the crib, we didn’t want them missing out.
After much prayer and reflection, we decided we needed every family to have its own Nativity. But we certainly couldn’t afford to buy everyone a nativity set. So we looked online and found a Nativity designed to fit onto an A4 sheet of paper that children can colour and cut out – it’s called a Travel Tin Nativity.
The cutout Nativity features a stable as well as the Holy Family, shepherds, angels and 3 kings carrying their gifts, and there are also a host of animals, sheep, birds and of course the oxen and the ass. There is even a 'cut-out-and-colour-in' manger!
We made it a priority to provide one for every household in our team and also distribute them around our schools as some children live away from our parishes. This means every family who joins our Crib Service can place their own figures into their own Nativity as the story of Christ’s birth unfolds.
We really hope our alternative service will help everyone share the joy of Christmas!
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‘#ComfortAndJoy’ is the official Church of England Christmas campaign.
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