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Spreading Love & Hope...
Welcome to our Christmas Week devotion. These resources have been gathered for your use at home as we continue in physical social distancing and virtual social connection. May this devotion and the links provided help you stay connected to God and the wider community this Christmas. Scroll down for worship links for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
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Thank you for all the Advent and Christmas pictures you have shared! To view everyone's Home Nativity on the Salisbury Church website click on the blue button.
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Blessings & joy, Ana & Tod
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Holy Season
by Thandiwe Dale-Ferguson
This is indeed a holy season.
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This is a season of light shining in the shadows.
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And the shadows will not overcome it.
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This is a season where we allow God to light hope, peace, joy and love
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on the wicks of our lives.
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This is a season of thin spaces
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where the distance between holy and mundane,
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and you can almost reach through and touch the divine.
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Or maybe it's not a matter of almost.
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Perhaps, really, the divine is already reaching through and touching us.
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With tenderness and truth,
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with courage and compassion,
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May you, too, feel the holiness of this time.
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Olive wood Nativity, Graham & Barbara
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by Ted Loder, Guerrillas of Grace
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God of all seasons and senses,
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grant us this Christmas, the sense of your timing
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to submit gracefully and rejoice quietly in the turn of the seasons.
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In this season of short days and long nights,
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of grey and white and cold,
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teach us the lessons of endings;
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children growing, friends leaving, loved ones dying, grieving over,
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grudges over, blaming over, excuses over.
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O God, grant us a sense of your timing.
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In this Christmas season of short days and long nights,
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of grey and white and cold,
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teach us the lessons of beginnings;
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that such waitings and endings may be the starting place,
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a planting of seeds which bring to birth what is ready to be born
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—something right and just and different,
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a new song, a deeper relationship, a fuller love—
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in the fullness of your time.
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O God, grant us the sense of your timing. Amen.
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Used with permission from Christine Longhurst, editor of re-worship.blogspot on which the prayer is posted.
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Musical Inspiration
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Ring in Christmas along with Ashley's caroller (above) with these three renditions of the
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Carol of the Bells...
composed by the Ukrainian composer Mykola Dmytrovych Leontovych.
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Christmas trivia:
Throughout the composition, Leontovych employs a four note motif as an ostinato taken from an ancient Ukrainian New Year's chant known in Ukrainian as "Shchedryk", meaning 'the Generous One'.
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First, Berea College's Blue Grass Rendition (USA)
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Second, a Ukrainian Bell Choir
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Third, Jennifer Thomas' arrangement from her 2015 performance at Benaroya Hall in Seattle, with the Ensign Symphony & Chorus, with choral arrangements by Sheila Bateman.
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Lastly, Jakub Jan Ryba's 1796 Christmas Choral Mass shared by Leslie S.
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45 minutes of angelic music!
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Ryba was a Czech teacher and composer of classical music.
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Wishing you Peace and Christmas Blessings
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Thursday 24 December - Christmas Eve Communion 19:00
Friday 25 December - Christmas morning 10:00
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Andover, Broad Chalke & Salisbury congregations
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of the United Reformed Church gather on Zoom for united worship service.
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Click on the blue button above to visit Worship Words for prayers and reflections for Christmas.
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Reminder - Tuesday's Bible Study & Fellowship Group
14:30-16:00 for fellowship, Bible study and prayer.
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On hiatus until 12 January.
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In case you missed it...
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Previous Home Devotions Missed a Devotion? Find it here.
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Subscribe to these Home Devotions
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To receive this Daily Home Devotion in your inbox, please click on this www icon and subscribe on the Salisbury United Reformed Church website.
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Salisbury URC church copyright license CCL License B 430662
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As this is an email newsletter, and not a publication or post on a website, the one-off use of certain items is allowed, as for a Sunday service sheet.
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If you catch an error, let us know so we can rectify it.
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Contact us by email and visit (and join) Salisbury United Reformed Church on Facebook and our website.
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