There’s another chance to sing carols under the stars on Monday, December 22, at 6pm, in the grounds at St George’s Church. Join us to sing your favourite carols. Bring a torch, wrap up warm and don’t worry, we’ll go inside if it is wet!
Photo by Skip Linkler on Pexels
St George’s was sparkling with both lights and creatity over the first weekend of December when the parish’s inaugural Christmas Tree Festival took place, also raising around £4,000 for charity.
An estimated 2,000 visitors came to see the 48 trees entered by individuals and organisations, most of whom had taken a imaginative approach to the invitation to create a tree reflecting something about them. The results ranged from a tepee to a tutu, from living flowers to cans of soup, copper pipes to industrial bearings and seemingly everything in between.
Visitors voted for their favourite trees and the overall winner was announced at the carol service on Sunday, December 7. when the raffle was also drawn. The winner was the Tice’s Meadow tree which was made entirely of materials found in the nature reserve with decorations created by children from Hawley Woods School.
There was a café all weekend, and on the Saturday there were craft stalls, live music and a visit from Father Christmas. Overall, the festival raised around £4,000 which has been divided between the parish and Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice Care.
There were many stand-out moments over the weekend. Among the favourites for Kris Lawrence were: “Children dancing in the aisles in the Carol Service. At the end of set up on Thursday when it was just the organisers, we switched off all the church lights and just soaked up the atmosphere. Similarly the choir singing Oh Holy Night at the end of the carol service with all the church lights switched off was a special moment.”
Rev’d Lexi Russell added: ‘In all my years of going to church this has to be the best event hosted by a parish. The community spirit throughout the festival has been amazing, with lots of people coming together to make each tree so individual and unique. It was clear to see the time, effort and creativity that had gone into each tree and it was a reflection of what can happen when a community comes together for a great cause.
“Of course, with a festival of this scale there has been a team of dedicated volunteers, who have been planning this for months, as well as though who came to lend a hand throughout the weekend – from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Without them, none of this would have been possible. And of course, I must thank those who gave their time to provide entertainment throughout the festival too.Â
“I’m so proud to have been part of such a brilliant event and I’m looking forward to see how what may happen next year!”
Plans are already in place for another festival next year. Meanwhile, here is a glimpse of this year’s one:
Welcome to Advent – the beginning of the Church’s year and the last month of 2025.
And that means Christmas! Inside the magazine you will find news of all our Christmas services and other events, including our Christmas Tree Festival on December 5-7, and of course carol services and outdoor carol singing and Christmas services. It is a most wonderful time of the year, because it celebrates God in human form, God ever with us.
You’ll find other news such as the start of Bubble Church, and our regular contributors too – Hive Helpers, still busy in the winter months; The Badshot Leader with its eclectic and fascinating mix of current events and history; the Church Dog and the Church Cat. There’s prayer, reflection, news and plenty more.
Read on to find out more.
As we move towards Christmas we celebrate with carols sung both in church and outside, and on Christmas Eve we hold crib services at all three churches (two crib services at St George’s!) and then Midnight Mass beginning at 11.30pm in St George’s and St John’s.
We then celebrate the wonderful news of the incarnation of God on Christmas morning in all three churches.
Here are the special services in December:
Sunday, December 8th, 6pm at St John’s.
Sunday, December 15th, 6pm at St George’s.
Friday, December 20th, 6pm at Hale Chapels (cemetery, Alma Lane), followed by refreshments at St Mark’s.
Monday, December 23rd, 6pm around the tree at St George’s.
All Tuesday, December 24th. Come dressed as your favourite Nativity character.
3pm: St John’s.
3pm: St George’s especially for toddlers.
5pm: St Mark’s.
5.30pm: St George’s.
Tuesday, December 24th, 11.30pm, at St John’s and St George’s.
9.30am, St John’s.
10am, St George’s.
11am, St Mark’s.
Christmas is coming! But before then Advent
We are just about to enter Advent, a time of awaiting the coming of God in human form, a time of longing for something better, the promise of a new start.
This is often forgotten in the rush towards Christmas, in the frantic shopping and worrying about how we are going to afford the presents we feel our families deserve, or the feast we believe we should spread on our tables. We are caught up, too, in the excitement of sparkling lights, carols sung, mulled wine and mince pies consumed, and the annual game of Whammagedon.
If that is how you feel and you don’t like it, pause for a moment, switch off the radio (you may be about to hear Wham’s Last Christmas in any case, especially if you click on the link I’ve just added!) and reflect on Advent.
Advent is the beginning of the Church’s year and is a time of preparing for the coming of Christ. It starts four Sundays before Christmas which, this year, is December 1 and, as it takes place at the darkest time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, reminds us of the need for light. Each Sunday in many churches a different candle is lit, with varying understandings of what each one represents, depending on tradition (anything from the Patriarchs to hope to prophecy) but all pointing to one thing, the coming of Christ, the manifestation of God’s extraordinary, redeeming, overwhelming love.
It also points to the margins of our society, because the Gospels tell of God coming into the world in human form as a refugee, a member of an oppressed culture, not someone most of us would welcome or worship. God is there at the margins as well as in the respectable places of the world. And God holds out hope and love to all.
There have been carols galore across the Parish of Badshot Lea and Hale this Christmas, with more to come in the next few days.
So far, there have been three carols services, one at each church, and two outside gatherings at which carols were sung with gusto. One was on Monday, 18th, in the grounds of St George’s, under the lit trees, and the second in the new Hale Chapels Garden in the cemetery opposite St Mark’s.
The garden was opened in July this year and blessed by Bishop Christopher Herbert, and has been created using stone and many original features from the old chapels of rest in the cemetery which had fallen into disrepair. The flower beds have been planted with varieties of trees and plants which appear in the Bible and the end result is a peaceful garden which invites reflection and calm.
It was less peaceful on Wednesday, 20th, as around 70 people from across the community, including the Mayor and others from the council, sang with gusto as Rev’d Lesley Crawley led the singing, accompanied by Bob and Lesley Shatwell on violin and recorder, and Margaret Emberson on keyboard. Those three also played at St George’s on Monday.
Afterwards most people headed for St Mark’s for mulled wine, hot chocolate and mince pies provided by Jeanne Sanders.
It was agreed that, like the St George’s outside carol evening, this should become a regular event.
The next chance to sing carols will be at our crib services at all three churches on Christmas Eve:
3pm at St John’s;
5.30pm at St George’s;
5.30pm at St Mark’s;
Plus a special Toddler Crib Service at 3pm at St George’s.
There will then be Midnight Mass at St John’s and St George’s at 11.30pm on Christmas Eve, and Christmas morning communion services at all three churches:
9.30am at St John’s;
10am at St George’s;
11am at St Mark’s.
Come and celebrate with us!
Come join us for the November Craft Market this Saturday, to get your hands on some beautiful homemade crafts and support your local community.
This month only our craft market will be visited by none other than Santa! So please come along and get into the Christmas spirit with us.
Its free entry and starts from 10am – 2pm Saturday, 18th November at St. Mark’s Church, Alma Lane, Upper Hale
Here are some examples of the crafts are wonderful stalls make:
Have you exceeded the speed limit?
Have you cycled on the pavement?
Have you ever knocked on someones door and run away?
Have you activated your burglar alarm without nominating a key holder who can turn it off in your absence?
Have you sung happy birthday to a friend in public without a copyright license?
All of the above are against the law. Congratulations if you have answered no to all of them! But…
Have you driven a car before 1976 without a bale of hay?
Are you a man born before 1943? Did you keep up your longbow practice?
That is the problem with the law – there are so many, including the ones you don’t know about that it is impossible to keep them all.
So what has this got to do with Christmas? What we are celebrating is the coming of God to earth, but more than that, we are celebrating a whole new way of being right with God.
Lots of religions, and I only haven’t said all except Christianity because I don’t know about all of them, believe that you get right with God by doing the right things, by keeping the “law”. This was certainly the case with 1st Century Jews who not only had the 10 commandments, but the 613 laws of Moses and others that the pharisees had created to ensure that none of the others were broken – except it wasn’t possible to keep all the laws.
Jesus was born to bring Good News to the world – the good news being that it wasn’t keeping the law that made us right with God. Instead God loves all of us – whatever we have done – being right with God depends on God – not us. If you look at the Bible – the only people that Jesus has no time for are those who tell everyone that you have to behave – having created laws which people find impossible to keep, and which they cannot keep themselves, despite perhaps appearing to do so.
Now at this point you might well point me towards a lot of those Christians you hear on the radio telling you about the all the “laws” that you have to keep. All I can say is that I fundamentally disagree with them. Unfortunately the press like conflict and the extremes of the Church of England get more press time than the centre. This parish and the three churches in it are members of Inclusive Church, an organisation whose vision is, in part:
We believe in inclusive Church – a church which celebrates and affirms every person and does not discriminate. We will continue to challenge the church where it continues to discriminate against people on grounds of disability, economic power, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, learning disability, mental health, neurodiversity, or sexuality.
God is not a God who is watching over you, trying to catch you doing something you shouldn’t – adding up the pluses and minuses like some Santa figure trying to figure out if you are “naughty or nice”. God is a God who wants us all to have life in all its fullness – to live this life in a way that is fulfilling and life giving. That is the Good News that Jesus was born to bring to us – isn’t that something worth celebrating?
However, this isn’t some excuse for us all to do whatever we want. If God wants us all to have life in all its fullness then we cannot enjoy our life in such a way that others ability to enjoy theirs is impacted. If we insist on overheating the planet because we want our creature comforts, then others homes get flooded; if we want to pay less in taxes then those without the ability to earn sufficient to live will suffer; if we refuse to look after refugees, and others less well off than ourselves, then what for their life in all its fullness? The Jewish scriptures, based on law, defend the rights of the widow the alien and the orphan – how can we basking in God’s love do less?
Of course, if you believe in a God who is trying to catch you out then you will find that a different set of priorities are necessary and you might start telling people how they should behave to be right with God.
No wonder Jesus birth is seen as Good News – now we can all live the lives that he calls us to – lives that allow us and everyone else to enjoy life in all its fullness. No wonder we are celebrating the incarnation – God with us. If you aren’t already part of it I invite you to join this journey of faith and to share in the Good News.
The Parish of Badshot Lea and Hale 