The Salvation Army Chatham

Last week we were complaining about the awful wet weather experienced for the start of our carolling programme and saying we hoped for better this week.

A frosty morning in Medway

As the picture shows it has been much better with some beautiful cold and sunny days and some really hard frosts especially in the mornings. Ideal for carolling you might say! Trouble is nearly all of our carolling programme this week has been indoors. Wouldn’t you just guess it?

On Saturday the Songsters presented their Christmas concert on behalf of the Inner Wheel of Rochester. The programme included a variety of music to suit all tastes and of particular blessing was a sequence of songs and readings featuring the Christmas story. The readings were taken from Luke 1:30-31 and 46-50, and Luke 2:1-7 and 8-12. The songs, arranged alternately with the readings were ‘Breath of Heaven (Mary’s Song)’, ‘How far is it to Bethlehem?’ and ‘Rise up Shepherd’. The pictures below show the songsters and the three soloists in ‘When the Roll’.

Frankie Kember, a Chatham Songster, is President of Inner Wheel Rochester this year and the evening raised £555 for Frankie’s chosen charities which are ‘Hope and Homes for Children‘ and ‘The Salvation Army Family Tracing Service‘.

Frankie Kember

On Sunday morning KAOS Leader Tracy Wood led the children’s carol service in which all the young people took part.

Tracy

Carols used were ‘Joy to the World‘, ‘Little Donkey‘, ‘It came upon the midnight clear‘, ‘Away in a Manger‘ and ‘Hark the herald Angels Sing‘. Tracy based her message on Matthew 1:18-25 and our junior music sections both took part, the Singing Company bringing ‘Joy to the World’ and ‘All the days of our lives’ and the Junior Band ‘A starry night’. The Primary and Junior Timbrels also took part.

In the evening Major Drew was our leader and he took as his theme ‘Coming….ready or not!’

Major Drew

The meeting was in three parts. Part 1 – Promise through the prophets – used SA Song Book 79 and Songs of Fellowship 742 together with scripture from Isaiah 7:14 and 9:6-7, John 14:3 and Revelation 22:12-13.

Part 2 – Patient in the waiting – used Galations 4:4 together with 894 and 895 from Songs of Fellowship. Several people gave voluntary testimonies about how God is helping them with the difficult task of waiting for His time.

Part 3 – People – used Matthew 25:1-13, Songs of Fellowship 1561 and SA Song Book 75. The message was delivered during this part of the meeting. Drew said the parable of the ten virgins is a hard one to preach on. Is a wise person wise because he looks after himself? The parable seems to be in conflict with many other teachings and it challenges most of the things we believe about God. It is too close to home for some of us. Planning is so important to most of us that the influence of God’s spirit is often blocked out. But maybe this is a story about the ‘oil’ we carry with us. What is this kind of oil? What happens when it runs out? A spiritual person is of no use when the oil runs out, when he runs dry. If we do not sustain ourselves we will crash. We have to work out what fills us with oil so that we can keep going. We must be filled with oil so that when the ‘bridegroom’ comes we are ready. We can’t borrow other people’s oil. If we keep our lives filled with oil we will be granted great joy when we meet Jesus.

Musical contributions were made by both Band and Songsters who brought ‘The New Born Babe’ and ‘Rise up Shepherd’ respectively.

Another busy week lies ahead and we shall keep you up to date with all the ‘goings on’. May your preparations for the holiday go well. See you next week, if not before.