Advent update

Advent to date at St John's Seven Kings has included Advent Reflections, Tamil Carols, Brownies Got Talent, Christingle Service and Nine Lessons and Carols by Candlelight. Today added the Christmas Party for the Downshall Pre-School Playgroup plus Carol Singing around the Parish. Later in the week Downshall Primary School will come for their Christmas Assemblies. We have raised funds for The Children's Society through our Christingle Service and for Haven House Hospice through our Carol Singing. 

The choirs of St John's and St Peter's Aldborough Hatch have led our worship in the Advent Service for the Seven Kings Fellowship of Churches and also at our Service of Nine Lessons and Carols by Candlelight. The two choirs will join forces again this Sunday evening for a Service of Nine Lessons and Carols at St Peters.

The latest creation of our banner group - a cover for our organ with a text from Psalm 57 - was dedicated during our Christingle Service. The dedication prayer we used was:  We dedicate this organ cover to the glory of God in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We thank you for the gift of music, the abilities of musicians and singers and of those who make and maintain the instruments we use in worship. May this organ cover be both a protection to our organ and a reminder to all of the contribution which music and musicians make to our worship. Amen.

Our church website is currently part way through a significant upgrade. The new format is in place and the next stage is to update the content. We are very grateful to Doug Feather who has maintained our website over a number of years and helped transition to the new format. Also to Senthur Balaji and colleagues for their work in redesigning the look of the site. 

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Sufjan Stevens - O come, O come Emmanuel.

Jubilee reflections (1)

St John's Seven Kings has its Jubilee Garden Party tomorrow from 2.00 – 5.00pm which includes games, stalls and cream teas. This morning I was at the excellent Jubilee lunch for the children at the Downshall Pre-School Playgroup. 

  
One of the key features of the Queen's reign has been the way in which she has spoken of her Christian faith, often most clearly in her Christmas messages.

In her 2011 Christmas Message she said:

“Finding hope in adversity is one of the themes of Christmas. Jesus was born into a world full of fear. The angels came to frightened shepherds with hope in their voices: 'Fear not', they urged, 'we bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

'For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.'

Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves - from our recklessness or our greed.

God sent into the world a unique person - neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive.

Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It can heal broken families, it can restore friendships and it can reconcile divided communities. It is in forgiveness that we feel the power of God's love.

It is my prayer that on this Christmas day we might all find room in our lives for the message of the angels and for the love of God through Christ our Lord.”

The Rev Christopher Woods, Secretary of the Liturgical Commission and National Worship Adviser, has said: “The fact that Her Majesty has been our Queen for 60 years and is still full of enthusiasm and joy is the occasion for a great deal of celebration and thanksgiving to God.

"To this end, the Church of England is delighted to compile prayers, both traditional and modern, to be used in church services in 2012: on Monday, February 6, to celebrate The Queen’s accession to the throne; on Sunday, June 3, during the Jubilee weekend; and at other times during the year.”

The Diamond Jubilee Prayer reads: God of time and eternity, whose Son reigns as servant, not master; we give you thanks and praise that you have blessed this Nation, the Realms and Territories with ELIZABETH, our beloved and glorious Queen. In this year of Jubilee, grant her your gifts of love and joy and peace as she continues in faithful obedience to you, her Lord and God and in devoted service to her lands and peoples, and those of the Commonwealth, now and all the days of her life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Tim Hughes - Light Of The World.

Undervaluing and undercutting the Third Sector

Earlier in the week I chaired the AGM of the Downshall Pre-School Playgroup, as Chair of Trustees. 09/10 has been another very successful year for the Pre-School Playgroup where, as part of delivering our core business of enhancing the development and education of children under statutory school age by encouraging their parents to understand and provide for the needs of their children, we have organised a visit from the Road Safety Roadshow, held International Lunches for parents and children, hosted a Redbridge Institute of Adult Education 'Play and Learn' course for parents, held weekly cookery sessions for children, regularly visited the Mobile Library, and held our annual picnic in Seven Kings Park and Christmas Party with visits from Mr Zippy and Father Christmas.

However changes to funding and to funding structures are making the delivery of successful and high quality community-based and charitably run childcare settings like Downshall Pre-School Playgroup increasingly difficult to sustain. The problem is essentially that the Government and local authorities increasingly wish to treat such settings in the same way as schools by operating the same funding structures. As a result, the funding process for childcare settings has become increasingly complex and bureaucratic imposing an additional administration burden on these settings at the same time that funds overall are becoming tighter.

This, in itself, is part of a wider problem with the way in central and local government tend to engage with the Third Sector generally. Good intentions about tapping the skills of volunteers and the contacts of community groups are undercut by the reluctance of local authorities and government departments to bear the cost of monitoring and managing lots of small contracts with lots of small organisations. Instead, the tendency is to tender with larger organisations or consortia which while they may be Third Sector organisations do not possess the grassroots confidence, contacts and volunteers which community groups possess and ministers wish to tap.

Sometimes, as with childcare currently, everyone gets swept up into a process designed for large organisations while on other occasions the large organisation gets the contract with the bulk of the funding and then sub-contracts the work to smaller groups at considerably less viable rates. These approaches improve the efficiency of the department running the contracts but removes or reduces the ability of genuinely community-based organisations to deliver. The current funding structures for childcare are running this risk at a time when demand for childcare remains high and in many areas is rising.

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Stevie Wonder - Isn't She Lovely.