scouting-and-guiding-3-2Hardwick’s Rainbows, Brownies, Guides, and a sprinkling of Cubs and Scouts were in the church for their carol service on Tuesday evening this week.
With lots of help, we put together the Christmas crib, carried candles to mark the parts of the Christmas story and told the Christmas story – well done to those who read bits of it to us from the Bible, and to those who read prayers on behalf of us all.

We also learned that the song ‘The 12 days of Christmas” was originally written for Catholic children and that all the animals and people in the story are a kind of code to help them learn about the Christian faith.  The one partridge is Jesus, the two calling birds are the Old and New Testaments, the three French hens are faith, hope and love, and so on.

But we learned a new version all about the birth of Jesus which you can read on the placards in the photo, ending with ‘Our Saviour Jesus is born’.  Not just a person in a song or a story, but a real human being, whose existence (and special-ness) was noted in contemporary texts, beyond the Bible.