Newsletter - January 2025
Happy New Year! As you can imagine, it’s been a very busy few weeks at St Philip’s and we are very grateful to all those who volunteered and helped out in so many different ways to help us celebrate Christmas.
The Music Group started rehearsing in November and contributed greatly to our Parish Carol Service on Sunday 15th December, which was followed by mulled wine and mince pies in church. It was a wonderful evening.
Before that, members of our Sunday congregation delivered almost 1000 leaflets advertising our Christmas services to every home in the parish. The afternoon of Saturday 14th December saw a great team of volunteers working away to decorate the church. Once again each church group was represented by an eco-friendly Christmas tree – Coffee group, First Steps, Sunday School, Gardening Group, Music Group, Eco group and the Holy Dusters. All the trees were displayed in the windows, except for the large Sunday School tree in the Sanctuary. Talking of the Sunday School, they performed Away in a Manger in the Sunday Eucharist on 8th December.
We were able to celebrate Christmas with the residents of both Abbeyfield and Reigate Grange in services of Holy Communion with Carols. Starting this month, we will now be holding a monthly Communion service at Reigate Grange as well as at Abbeyfield. It is good to be strengthening this link after a break during the Vacancy.
The excitement was palpable on Christmas Eve, with two very busy Christingle and Crib services attended by over 350 in total, all of whom thoroughly enjoyed Ben Hilder’s retelling of the Nativity story, brought to life by Brian and many of the children present. We are grateful to all those who took home our kits and returned them transformed into fully fledged Christingles. It was wonderful to reinstate Midnight Mass – always a special service – and to place the baby Jesus in our outdoor crib scene on that most holy night.
As we look to the year ahead, we are determined to to reinvigorate our Eco group and to work for the Silver Eco-Church award, so watch this space…!
We wish all our readers a very happy and healthy 2025.
