Empty Stable at Wool

Do you remember the year Amy our oldest member, then 92, accompanied by the youngest child in church, carried the baby Jesus to the crib? There wasn’t a dry eye in the house!

With falling numbers and less regular attendance, our Sunday School nativity play was no longer viable. We needed a re-think, so a couple of years ago we scrapped the play and developed the Crib and Communion Service as a way of rounding off the term for the children and retaining their involvement in the main communion service on the last Sunday before Christmas.

All the children, both Sunday School regulars and visitors, are invited to be a part of the procession bringing the crib figures forward during the singing of a suitable carol. 

The nativity play costumes are available for those who would like to dress up and members of the Sunday School team sort out costumes, allocate figures, guide the children round the church and receive the figures to place them in the stable. 

If there aren’t enough children, then we co-opt the grown ups, some more enthusiastically than others but no one has said no, and once involved they love it too. We use an all-age communion format as the framework for the service, but it could work with any form that is child-friendly.

This year it takes place again at The Church of the Holy Rood, Wool on Sunday 23^rd December at 10.00am.   For more information contact Rhona Floate, 01929 462215, vicar@holyroodwool.org