Christmas Story

Thank you to all who have worked to make Christmas such a blessed time at Seal Church this year.

The story which I told in our Christmas Morning service - the Christmas Branch - can be found on the church website. Click on the link on the right hand side of the page.

Christmas at Seal

What's on for Christmas at Seal Church?

SUNDAY 20 DEC
10 am All Age worship with an angelic theme
NO Matins this morning
6.30 pm Traditional Carol Service

CHRISTMAS EVE
4pm Crib Service
11.30 pm Midnight Mass (Carols from 11pm)

CHRISTMAS DAY
10 am All Age Communion

And here's a picture of a festive visitor to the vicarage patio...

(Don't worry - there's no pheasant on the menu for Christmas Day in the Le Bas household!)

And a picture of Seal Church hall pretending to be a Swiss chalet...

Women Bishops and the Apostolic Consititution

Earlier in the year I was interviewed, along with other Christians in Sevenoaks, by a BBC online reporter about the controversies surrounding the consecration of women bishops. The same reporter has now done a follow-up piece in the wake of two recent developments in this discussion, the report of the Revision committee looking at the legislation which would be needed for women to be bishops, and the Pope's offer (the Apostolic Constitution) to create an "ordinariate" for Anglicans wishing to become Roman Catholic but keep elements of their Anglican heritage.
The follow up report is here, in case you are interested.

The first Messy Church - a great success

We didn't know if anyone would come. But in the event we had about 17 children (they didn't stay still long enough to count reliably), plus their accompanying adults, at our first Messy Church session in the Church Hall yesterday. We were preparing for Harvest Festival (next Sunday - Oct 4), which is also the feast day of St Francis, so we made a banner with St Francis preaching to the birds - our birds are species previously unknown to ornithologists, but fantastically colourful and feathery (see below, or come along to church to see them next week!). We also made sunflower pew ends to adorn the church for Harvest, and bird feeders to take home, made out of old plastic milk bottles... I hope the avian population of Seal appreciate our labours. You might think that this would have appealed mainly to the younger children, but it was the teens and nearly teens who couldn't be dragged away from the cutting and sticking for the final round-up act of worship. This included (of course) a spirited rendition of Old Macdonald (can't think why that wasn't included in Hymns Ancient and Modern) during which we discovered that Old Macdonald had diversified - as farmers must these days - and was now keeping dinosaurs, as well as the usual cow, sheep, pig etc. I suggested to the small
boy who insisted on including the dinosaur that it might eat the other animals. "Perhaps it is a herbivorous dinosaur - one that only eats plants?" I asked. "No, its a T.Rex!" he retorted. Why am I not surprised...
The session certainly lived up to its name - it was exceedingly messy - but as you can tell, great fun.
Future sessions are from 4-5.30 on:
Nov 22
Jan 24
April 2 - Good Friday morning in the Church (10-11.30)
May 16

All welcome!

Seal Fete

A wonderful fete! The weather was glorious, and lots of people came. These photos were taken near the start of the fete, so it doesn't look anything like as busy as it was when things really got going. I am hoping that some of you out there have more photos. Send them along and I'll post them here.
Many thanks to all who worked so hard to make this a success!

Seal Fete 2

H1N1 flu

H1N1 Flu
In accordance with guidelines issued by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York,we will only be giving the bread at Communion services for the time being.
You can find out more about the Church's response to the current flu pandemic here.

If you think you have flu and need a "flu friend" to collect Tamiflu or other essentials, please contact us and we will do our best to help.

St Paul's bones?

There's a fascinating article in today's Daily Mail by A.N. Wilson about the excavations in the church of St Paul without the walls in Rome, which was built over the spot where it has always been alleged that St Paul's body was buried.
Whether the bones discovered there are Paul's or not, Wilson does a very good job of putting Paul's significance into a nutshell, and talking about his relationship with St Peter too.