One of my absolute favourite days of the church year is the annual Sunday School Nativity service, and this  year was definitely one of the best ever.  In a borrowed room ourselves, a conscious choice had been made not to go for the 'ah' factor but to embrace some of the tensions of celebrating the birth of Christ in the world of which we are part, where refugees, asylum seekers and migrants are very much in our thoughts and prayers.

It's impossible to do justice to the experience which included traditional and contemporary rewrites of carols, Biblie readings and stories from Bethlehem today, beautiful choral singing and the stunning image of small children lending Jesus their shawls and blankies, the JPIT "Very British nativity", a reflection on the significance and symbolism of keys and so much more, yet never once crossed that fine line from worship to performance.

Only our third week in the hotel, and already visitors are finding us, and enjoying wprshipping with us.

Only our third week, and we have halved the time for setting up and clearing up.

Only the third week, and we had to bring in extra chairs and open the doors because it was too warm!

Feeling very blessed (and very full after lunch with a namesake, her fiance and a Hungarian!)

Photo (c) Brian Muir (cropped)