Bramford Road Methodist church in Ipswich held our annual “Follow the Star” service on Sunday 11th December 2022. It is one of the services in the Churches calendar that I look forward to the most and during the last five years of being minister of the Church this has become one of the highlights of my year. As with so many things, we had to have a break because of Covid and it has taken a bit of building up the momentum since, but the idea is that we start telling the Christmas story in the Church sanctuary, then follow the star, and the Donkey outside, visiting the inn, and then making our way onto the field to the stable. The donkey is always an attraction for the children, and every year so far, we have managed to have a real baby, which is also a special touch this was our seventh year of holding this event and in seven years we’ve managed to have a baby every year, but so far have never managed to find a boy!
When I was a lad, one Sunday a month, we had what we called “the family service” which meant that rather than leaving after the second hymn, because the sermon was deemed as being unsuitable for children, we stayed in for the entire service and didn’t go into Sunday School. The uniformed organizations like cubs, brownies etc. would come to these services and parade in at the beginning with their flags. The family service had a somewhat questionable success depending very much on who was leading the service. We modernised some time during the eighties and started calling the service “All Age Worship” and at my most cynical, I would say that the strategic move did little to make any difference, apart from changing a name.
As a preacher, I have always found Family Worship, or All Age Worship quite a challenge. Trying to engage in an hour with a two year old and a ninety-two year with all the ages in between is a tricky business, and by no means easy to pull off. The problem is heightened by the face that if we are truly trying to reach all people of all ages, not only their life span age, but their experience in the faith is not easy and those services labelled “All Age” are undoubtedly the one that tax me the most. Maybe it is because of the effort I put in and the prayers that surround the process of preparation, they are the services that set my nerves jangling before, but my euphoria levels soaring afterwards.
Even in December 2022, on a freezing cold Sunday afternoon, the Christmas story manages to pull off All Age Worship. I have the privilege of standing facing those who have come out to experience the service. Ages range from the smallest of children, right through the generations, to people in their eighties and nineties, people who attend Church most Sundays and people I have never met before. Two thousand years on, this age old story still manages to do what mere human beings struggle with, no matter who we are, what our story is, our gender, our faith beliefs, who we are, what we are, we stand together as brothers and sisters and gaze once again into the stable and hear the greatest story ever told.