Dear Friends,

We wish you a joyful and peaceful Christmas, through the celebration of Immanuel with us.

Thank you so much for all your love and support this year, it means a great deal to us.

Tomorrow, the residential Community disperse  for their Christmas break, and will return ready to welcome guests for the New Year House Party which begins on Sunday 29th December. Our next livestreamed Sanctuary service will be on Wednesday 1st January from 4:30pm.

With love and prayers from Phil, Di and the whole Scargill Community.

Here’s is Di’s latest reflection:

Last weekend, I was visiting All Souls Church in Leeds and for most of the morning I found myself comfortably sitting in front of this altar table.

I was repeatedly re-drawn to its gentle depiction of the nativity story. It was the curve of cloths uniting the Magi with Mary, then Jesus and finally Joseph which held my focus. In this world of war and conflict, fear and pain, Jesus came in all simplicity to save and to serve. 

Here I also saw humbleness and respect flow between the Magi and the Holy family, perhaps asking the same of us but also reminding me that Jesus came to bring peace and healing.

After a while I became aware that the curve continues with the candlesticks, forming perhaps a cup or a chalice reminding me that this is also the place to come before God and receive both bread and wine. A place where we can commune with God and God with us. A place where forgiveness is given, and love is offered.

I pray that you will have, allow yourself, the time to stop and rest, just for a few moments and sit before this altar table.

I wish you all a God-filled Christmas. 

On behalf of the Scargill Community we would like to wish you a peaceful and joy filled Christmas.

Please remember the St Oswald’s Community, Whitby in your prayers as the house closes and the Community are dispersed by the end of January. 

Our next livestream evening prayer service is taking place on Monday 1st January (from 4:30pm).

Here is Di’s reflection – enjoy!

Listening In by Charles Spencelayh (1865–1958), exhibited 1933, from the Tate Gallery. The description speaks of an ‘old man listening attentively to a startlingly modern wireless through a pair of head phones.’

Yesterday, as we entered the Harry Potter Experience with two of our grandchildren, we read these words from JK Rowling ‘No story lives unless someone wants to listen.’ I wanted to add – no story lives unless it is told.

A week ago, sitting at the back of Chapel, for once allowing myself to listen to one of our guest speakers, I found myself looking at people’s ears! (possibly because we were being encouraged to listen!) At first, I was struck by how funny ears are, two rather oddly wing shaped appendages, then of course I remembered that they serve us very well allowing us to hear all the sounds around, sweet as well as harsh.

I then began to think about my listening skills, well, they’re often not great! There are times I find myself mainly out of anxiety, butting-in whilst others are speaking, full of my thoughts and solutions, rather than hearing what is really being said. Unlike our first painting where we have an ‘old man listening attentively and in amazement’.

As did Joseph. Joseph a man of no words, a man of action: he plans, he resolves, he dreams, he hears an angel of the Lord, changes his mind, and obeys.

As did the shepherds. Who listened to the angels with utter astonishment and amazement and then left immediately, ‘with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.’

As did Mary. Who ‘treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.’

Now I am fairly sure most of us won’t have a heavenly visitation, perhaps we may have a dream or two, perhaps not. Remember though ‘No story lives unless someone wants to listen’ – no story lives unless it is told.

This Christmas we can all hear God’s voice afresh, if we listen with renewed hearts to the words we read, hear and see, pondering them like Mary. Can we like Joseph treasure God’s words, savour them, try to understand little by little what God is asking of each of us. Can we like the Shepherds eagerly share the Christmas story of hope to a world that desperately needs it.

With much love and prayers

Phil, Di and the Scargill Community

‘The moment the sound of your
    greeting entered my ears,
The babe in my womb
    skipped like a lamb for sheer joy.
Blessed woman, who believed what God said,
    believed every word would come true!’

Jane Williams, in ‘Approaching Christmas’, writes: ‘it is the simple joy of the child in the womb, dancing to celebrate the presence of Jesus that is so touching’ – an aspect of the nativity story we hardly ever dwell on.

Throughout the Old Testament, God calls his people to joyfulness. In the years and centuries before Christ’s birth, God’s people waited in joyful expectation, for a Saviour promised, but One who had not yet come. Their joy was not based on the knowledge of what God had already done through his Son, Jesus Christ, but their joy was an outpouring of their faith in what God WOULD do.

There doesn’t seem to be much real joy around at the moment, and perhaps there hasn’t been for quite a while. Why? To be honest I’m not sure.  

Do we feel overwhelmed with the demands of everyday life? So much so that our joy has been buried and Christ’s light has been greatly dimmed.  Is this because our focus has strayed and we find ourselves centring on all the ‘stuff’ around us rather than God’s Kingdom. Perhaps we have forgotten that joy is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22) given to us by God himself and no one can take it away. Perhaps we have forgotten that, ’The joy of the lord is our strength’.

Many things can bring us joy – a day of rest, entering an empty swimming pool (for me anyway), time with friends, a good book, a sunset, a glass of wine. There are plenty of Greek and Hebrew words for joy but what is important is not necessarily what joy means but rather where it comes from. Biblical joy comes from God. Like the joy of the ancient Israelites, our joy is a response to what God has already done and continues to do. It is an eager anticipation about wonderful things to come. It is the joy that flooded the hearts of the shepherds, the angels, the wise men, the hosts of heaven, Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph. It was there that first Christmas and still has the power to overwhelm our hearts with rejoicing.

This Advent can we rekindle the flame of love, revive our hope, restore our faith and unwrap the gift of joy, the ‘simple joy of the child in the womb, dancing to celebrate the presence of Jesus’, cherish and nurture it because today, our joy, fuelled by the Holy Spirit, is what God uses to spread his joy throughout the world. Mother Teresa once said “Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love.”

We wish you all a blessed and joyful Christmas.

With love and prayers from

Phil, Di and the Scargill Community

It has been wonderful to welcome old and new friends as Scargill fills with people for our New Year House Party. Over the last couple of days I have enjoyed being able to give a couple of reflections on the Christmas narrative in the context of the coming year. Something we have been exploring is the various aspects of the ‘traditional story’ that don’t actually feature in the biblical narrative. For instance there is no donkey, no Three Wise Men (there are Wise Men but of an unspecified number) and no innkeeper. Despite there being no innkeeper in the biblical text it can be useful to consider the role of innkeeper as it opens a new angle on the story. I was struck by the BBC Nativity a couple of years back which I felt offered a new insight into the reason why the innkeeper had ‘no room’ at the inn. The programme suggested the reason why the couple could not find lodging was that the unexpected pregnancy of Mary would bring disgrace on anybody associated with them. Mary and Joseph were not just vulnerable because they could find no room they were vulnerable because people didn’t want to make room. Mary carried shame and people didn’t want to catch it!

When thinking about the gift of hospitality it is good to be reminded of the challenges God gives us to welcome those on the edge of our communities who are far from respectable. For us to be truly hospitable to those on the fringes it requires a conversion of the heart. Let’s be honest, sometimes being hospitable can be really tiring, difficult and annoying but it is also incredibly life giving. As the Bible says, ‘Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.’ (Romans 15.7)

This year I am struck once again by the sheer vulnerability and fragility of the Christmas Narrative. It is not for the fainthearted. If we were truly to get into the reading it would make us feel uncomfortable. It involves a great deal of risk on behalf of God and of the main characters of the narrative. J Oswald Sanders said, ‘The frontiers of the Kingdom of God were never advanced by men and women of caution.’ I think we often put Health and Safety criteria into our journey with God and of course looking at the Christmas narrative and other biblical stories that’s laughable!

And finally isn’t Bruce Cockburn absolutely brilliant? If you have the time you should check out his track Cry of a Tiny Babe. These words from the chorus send shivers down my spine, ‘Redemption rips through the surface of time in the cry of a tiny babe.’

So I wish you all the best for 2013 and that we all may have the courage to be risk takers for God and share his generous hospitality.

For more information about what is going on at Scargill in the New Year check out our online programme.