Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Signs of the Kingdom, Signs of the times

A busy busy 1st weekend of Advent...On Sunday our gospel reminded us that when all sorts of wild and terrifying things are going on in the world, we are to look up because the Kingdom begins here.
So I'm hoping to blog my way through Advent noticing signs of the Kingdom as I go along...

Saturday's signs
  • opening the door of church in the Valley on Saturday to a buzz of laughter and creativity, as PTA members arranged their stalls, while in the church hall congregation were busy with the same task
  • seeing the whole place full of happy people, chatting, shopping, enjoying tea and mince-pies or queuing to visit St Nicholas
  • realising that if the vicar simply HAD to buy something on every stall, this would of necessity include the completely fabulous cake stall (created out of nothing, when an initial appeal to school seemed to be producing minimal results - in the event, parents turned up in droves with all sorts of delicious goodies) AND the chocolate tomobola
  • the arrival of J., a teenager who has been helping completely off his own bat at Messy Church, and who clearly feels as a result that other church events deserve his support: he manned the "make your own Christingle" stall pretty much single-handed for an hour. Such a star!
  • a really pleasing total, with pretty much identical totals raised by the two groups, so that a 50:50 split left nobody feeling disadvantaged
  • hearing so many people, from both constituencies, say                       "It's better together..." and "We need one another"

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