So I guess we need to put the final touches to it as soon as possible. The article is in today’s Post on page 18 but if you click on the image it takes you to a nice large readable version over at Flickr.

Many thanks to Jonathan Tan for interviewing me and doing a nice write up!

from the November-December parish magazine known as ‘The Messenger’.

It’s a great joy to find myself beginning ministry in a new place that has been so welcoming to the family and I. We arrived to a box of lovely, practical goodies and essentials (chocolate is essential when moving with 3 children under 5!) and then began the gentle trickle of cards through the letterbox. On the 13th of October I was welcomed and licensed by people from church and community, which has launched me into a most appropriate beginning as your new Team Vicar! Since I have stopped being incognito and become official and started appearing about the place in my dog collar I have found even more warmth and helpfulness. I have been encouraged by the dog-walkers and the children en-route to school who smile at me as I come out of church following Morning Prayer.
I am thankful for the good beginning here in Heath Hayes, and for those of you who have made it so good. I really am overjoyed to be here and I am anticipating good things as I settle in to this community and my role as Vicar.
I don’t know about you but I am already looking towards Christmas. Surely I don’t hear groans from you all as you read this hot off the press?! We really can’t avoid the fact that it is only a matter of weeks away. If you’re like me, you’ll be thinking ‘but there isn’t time to prepare, argh I’m not ready, can’t we postpone Christmas this year?’. From the 30th of November the Church begins to celebrate the season of Advent. Advent is all about preparing, preparing for the Saviour, the Messiah, to come and save the world. It’s a season when we remember the pregnant Mary, the excitement of a first time mum waiting to meet her child. We are reminded of the coming excitement as children open their Advent Calendars, we wrap presents, make cakes and mince pies and begin the task of hunting down the Christmas decorations and dusting them off. During Advent we are given opportunities to take a breath and reflect, to stop for a moment and prepare ourselves. In church we do this weekly by lighting our Advent wreath and watching the candle burn, the light a sign of hope, a sign of the joy and excitement that is to come. We also have an Advent Carol Service where we light candles and sing ‘O come, O come Emmanuel’! We continue to use the candle as a sign of hope in our Christingle service. We follow this theme of light and hope, through the business of life and preparations until Christmas Eve- when young and old meet together to celebrate the glorious splendour of the birth of Jesus Christ, the light that came into the world and that lives forever, the birth that changed everything and brought salvation, peace and eternal life to the whole world. Now that’s something worth getting excited about!
So I pray that this Advent, you find the time to prepare yourselves, to hope and to anticipate something truly special this Christmas. Most of all I and everyone at St John’s wish you a very Happy Christmas and a blessed and peaceful New Year.

Leah

Please bear with me whilst I try to get the website working the way we need it to!