Fr Edward's Blog

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Thank you,

Fr Edward Martin (Rector of Scartho)

Christmas is coming and here are our Christmas Services for 2011. Please note that the Choir will sing from 6.30pm before the Carol Service begings on Wednesday 21st Decemeber.

We hope to see you in Church over the Christmas period! Why not come along and bring a friend? It really isn’t Christmas unless you’ve been to Church!

To ‘rail’ or not to ‘rail’ – that is the question!

I have to say that I’ve never given a great deal of thought to the question of ‘altar rails’. Some Churches have them, others don’t, and I usually
take things as I find them. My natural inclination would be to knee to receive
Holy Communion but, as I’m most often the celebrant, I only really get to do
this once or twice a year when I’m on holiday (if the Church in question has rails!).

Why then, do I raise this issue?

Over the last year or so we’ve been developing a plan to re-order the Chancel at St Giles with St Matthew. The idea was to bring the celebration closer to the congregation to aid participation and also to reduce the distance people had to walk to receive Communion. We wanted to make all this possible but without fundamentally changing the way that the Church looked – a big ask you might think!

What I imagined (and proposed) to the PCC was a plan to add a semi-circular extension to the Chancel step, to reduce (or scale-back) of the Choir furniture and then introduce a nave altar with together removable altar rails.

Things continued apace and various ‘learning curves’ were hit as we steered the plans through the Faculty process (hello to members of the English Heritage and the 20^th Century Society!). But it wasn’t until the work started to happen that the ‘problems’ started to reveal themselves. Rather foolishly (I realise this now!) I went on retreat while the work began and when I returned I soon realised that the extension to the Chancel step needed to come out by at least another foot and that the proposed altar rails didn’t fit the size and scale of what we were creating – they looked terribly out of place. Fortunately, and with grateful thanks to all involved, we managed to call everything to a halt and to re-assess and make the necessary changes whilst negotiating our way around Sunday services, Weddings and Baptisms.

The step-extension was brought out by another foot and I resisted (wisely as it turned out) my inclination to cut a further inch-and-a-half off of the bottom of the new altar (we got it in a sale!!!). When all was completed the altar rails still didn’t work (I got that sinking feeling in my stomach) and I began to think about alternatives – longer, higher, different design etc. However, any further change would be out of the question if the carpet (which was about to arrive was cut to accommodate the rails as they currently stood. So, I decided to put the altar rail issue ‘on ice’ and go ahead with the carpet and see what happened….

The result was somewhat unexpected!

Suddenly, we had wonderful ‘open space’ in front of the choir stalls and plenty of room to accommodate the new altar (which finally began to look like it might belong in the Church) together with the lectern and font.  The absence of the proposed rails also seemed to temper one of the most challenging features of the Church building as, quite literally, nothing lines up! The Chancel doesn’t line up with the nave roof, the centre aisle doesn’t line up with the Chancel or with the Tower arch (which doesn’t line up with the window in the west wall of the Tower…). Somehow, the curve of the new Chancel step seems to bring everything together. Great! But, now to the ‘tricky bit’…

So, what do we do now?

Well, my suggestion (at least for the moment) is to try life without altar rails at the Sunday 10am service. If people can kneel unassisted then they are free to do so. For others, the intention will be to stand to receive Communion (something that a number of people do already). On the plus side, this might help us to distribute Communion more quickly and efficiently (something that has been a bit of a worry). It’s certainly not an ‘unknown quantity’ to some members of the congregation as the former St Matthew’s Church never had rails and Communion is received standing on a Tuesday evening at 7pm.

Really, I think there are plenty of reasons / arguments either way but my ‘gut feeling’ is that, in this context, it may be as well to do without them. Time will tell!

Fr Edward

Over the years the Crib Service has become a splendid opportunity to go a little OTT in the pursuit of the Christmas Story. Having based last years’ service on ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’, this year I enlisted the help of Anne Robinson and ‘The Weakest Link’. Instead of using the ‘physical crib’ figures (which are quite fragile) I opted to include within the power-point presentation the building of a ‘virtual crib’. Better still, the virtual crib figures were animated pictures so they actually moved from time to time!

The service itself was packed-out and tremendous fun, if not a little hectic! It was great to see so many children and so many new faces. To say that people were enthusiastically shouting out the answers would be a bit of an understatement and it was a bit of a job at times to keep the whole enterprise under control (duly noted for next year!). The highlight came at the end of the service when the lights were dimmed, candles lit and we sang the ‘Though the shadows gather…’ the wonderful (!) Christmas ‘song’ set to the tune of ‘Is this the way to Amarillo?’ by Toni Christie. We sang it to a thumping karaoke backing track and folk were still singing it as they walked out into the snow!

This year I felt the ‘Lessons & Carols’ needed something of an overhaul and, having invested in a book by Nick Fawcett called ’Refective Services for Advent and Christmas’, I decided to use his suggested pattern of Biblical readings followed by ‘Talking Heads’ sytle monologues that brought out some of the themes from the readings. It felt like a bit of a gamble, but the material was really impressive and those who read over it for me were really encouraging. I also wondered if it might be particularly appropriate as there appears to be something of a concerted effort within the media (and society in general) to reflect on the ‘deeper meaning’ of Christmas this year – perhaps in the ake of the recession? With numbers a little down following the recent snow and ice I did worry about attendance, but the Choir found themselves with a half-full Church while they were still rehearsing for their advertised 6.40pm start! By 7.00pm the Church was full with over 100 people crammed in. I don’t think I couldn’t have wished for a better evening; the singing was superb and the readings were well received. The reaction ‘on the door’ afterwards was very positive and quite a few folk opted to take the service booklets home for further use and reflection. I’m beginning to wonder if Nick Fawcett might not be the new Susan Sayers?

Last night saw our ‘Quiet Service for Christmas’. I have to admit that this is something I’ve always been a little hesitant about because it tries to deal with a whole variety of possible emotions and experiences ‘all in one go’ and at a very sensitive time of year. The structure and contents were developed from a version made available on the Lincoln Diocesan website. It involves singing O Little Town of Bethlehem in sections and centres around a Litany that leads to candle-lighting as a liturgical action that symbolises and gives shape to the thoughts, feelings and prayers of those who take part. This year I wanted to avoid any sense of the service being ‘All Souls II’ or ‘All Souls at Christmas’ so we invested in a new votive light candle stand called ‘The Tree of Light’ from Kevin Mayhew. It certainly had the desired effect and the small congregation (numbers are usually 20 to 30) watched as music quietly played and the candles they had lit flickered before the altar. Like some funerals, this is always a service where it’s difficult to tell if you’ve really met peoples’ needs or expectations, but if the atmosphere that accompanied the candle-lighting was anything to go by then I don’t think we were too far off the mark.

Saturday snow dented our attendance on Sunday morning and the same was true of the evening Christingle service. What was really pleaseing was the the congregation was very nearly all visitors / seasonal worshippers and a splendid number of them (near 50%) were children! The service was available in a booklet and also on the new screen which seemed to make it more accessible (using resources from the Children’s Society website). The sermon developed an idea by Nick Harding from ‘All-age Worship for Advent and Christmas’ putting ‘CHRIST IN’ on the screen and inviting the (younger) members of the congregation to identify the missing letters and using them to establish the themes of Jesus as a ‘Gift from God’, the ‘Light of the World’ and ‘Emmanuel – God with us’. Altogether a good evening and, hopefully, they’ll be back for the Crib Service!

Sadly, Scartho Infant School were unable to come to Church for their Christmas Service due to the slippery conditions on the pavements and the Church path. After a discussion with the Headteacher we decided to hold the Service in the School Hall. I duly arrived with lap-top, screen, projector and extension cable and the show went on! First up in the morning was an excellent Nativity play by the younger children which involved a good number of songs and plenty of dialogue (all delivered with confidence by the children with very little prompting). The play centered around a Robin who heard Gabriel’s message to Mary but then forgot the substance of the message and so set off on a journey to ask tree, snow, stars etc if they knew. Finally, all was remembered just in time for the birth of Jesus! Phew.

Following a short break we reassembled in the hall with the older children for a mix of carols, songs (some from the Nativity play) and readings. I delivered a Christmas poem with moving dialogue and pictures (snowy weather many power points doth make) which seemed to go down well.

After desk work and a Home Communion in the afternoon, I made my way to the St Mary’s by the Sea the largest RC Church in Grimsby. Little is left of the original decoration in the Church but some had been recovered from behind the post-Vatican II white-wash. The annual Carol Service is an ecumenical affair that mixes something of  ‘Lessons & Carols’ with ‘Christingle’ and still manages to retain something of an Advent flavour. I was back again this year having been invited by the organiser to do my fire-eating routine. I gave it an Advent twist and, as ever, it didn’t let me down (I really need to learn a new trick fast!). Other highlights included the Choir from the newly formed St Andrew’s College and the Salvation Army Timbrel players (one of whom was adament that she must be home in time for the Apprentice!).

Today the threat of more snow casts something of a shadow over my intended drive to Newcastle in the evening for a pre-Christmas family visit and a trip to J&M Sewing to deliver an all-seasons Laudian altar frontal that we need fixing to a frame from use with our high-altar.

We’ll see…