Since May 2004, on the first Sunday evening of the month, our church has booked a local village hall, hosted a bring and share tea and invited people to ‘SoulFire’, an evening of friendship and worship with an invited speaker. The event is café-style, with children up and down to the food table throughout the evening!
Tonight we came together for the final SoulFire, as other events are now in place which cover the original objectives of the gathering. We now support a new Messy Church in one of our villages and we recognise that sometimes it is right to bring things to a close so that we do not end up spreading ourselves too thinly.
I was invited to speak tonight about my experience when I visited refugees in Greece in May this year. I have shared snippets of my stories with my own church and community, but it was good to have a chance to bring the whole story together.
It was also good that the video ‘A very British nativity’, produced by the Joint Public Issues Team, was made available on Friday, so that I was able to show that tonight, too. If you have not seen this excellent resource do go to the JPIT website (www.jointpublicissues.org.uk) to view it. An all-age resource which really works on many levels. I commend it to you.
