Dear Friends

The shops are decorated.  The lights are on in the village.  The music is playing in the shops.  There are mince pies for sale.  The first Christmas cards are beginning to drop through letter boxes and it won’t be long until we all begin to decorate our homes.  The adverts on the TV are already advising us which supermarket will be selling the cheapest/most succulent/freshest/most free-range turkeys - and it won’t be long until the adverts for the January sales start.  So this is Christmas - or is it?!

December is a month of contrasts, dark and light, parties and being alone, copious spending and debt.  For many December is a month of real dread.  Yet as Christians, December is the celebration of the coming of our hope into the world.  It is so easy to forget amidst all our other preparations, that Christmas is a time when we should be preparing our hearts to hear the good news of Immanuel once more.  A secular Christmas is a merry one, but one where once the food is eaten, the drinks drunk, the parties finished and the TV turned off, then nothing remains, nothing has changed.  Christmas to me, needs to be prepared for, which is why we have Advent, it needs to be celebrated with joy and thanksgiving and it needs to make a difference to your life.

  It is so easy, even in church, to let Christmas pass you by.  We get caught up in ‘doing Christmas’ as we always have, in ensuring that the traditions are continued and we ‘feel Christmassy’ but we need to ensure that we are truly challenged by the reality of the Saviour in the manger, God become man, Immanuel, God with us.  In being challenged we need to remember the thorn in the straw, that this baby is the same as the man on the cross, dying for each of us, that we might know the fullness of God’s love for us.  In our Church on the Edge housegroups this year we have all shared of God’s love and we would love to share even more.  In 2010, we will be looking at God’s grace and how, through the Saviour in the manger, we may know more of God’s love for us.  Why not think and pray about joining us?
Christmas is a busy time, but my hope and prayer is that you will more fully know the love that came down at Christmas.  On behalf of the Clowes family may I wish you all a very happy and blessed Christmas and a peaceful New Year.

Yours in Christ
Ben