As we come up to the Christmas period I always find myself looking back over the year to see how things have gone. To say that this year has been a cloud nine type of year would be to exaggerate somewhat.  In fact for me personally it has been a rather trying year although there have been some very high points as well.

We have suffered with a number of people becoming ill this year - hindering them from coming to the Fellowship as often as they would have liked; my father-in-law is now unable to walk and hasn’t been out and about for the last six months or so and   we have also had a few people move on which taken altogether has made a big gap in our Fellowship.

But, having said that, we have completed 3 sections of our ‘Starting From Scratch‘ project.  For many years I have desired to take the church through the basic doctrines of the Christian Faith and this year that desire has become a reality.  For five Thursdays each school term we have devoted our teaching to a specific topic.  in January our first subject was the ‘Word of God‘ then in April we looked at ‘God’s Plan Of Salvation‘ and just recently we have finished a five week spell studying ‘The Character of God‘.  Each course was very well attended and the feed back extremely positive.  The next one will be in January and we will be looking at the ‘Person Of Christ‘.

When we completed the renovation work on the building our desire was to hire out some of the facilities in order to 1] receive some revenue so our building project could progress to completion and 2] more importantly become more known in the community.  A few weeks ago the ‘Ystrad Communities First Team‘ started working from the Redfield Room on a Thursday.  This is a great encouragement for us as now the community is actually coming into our church and getting familiar with the surroundings.

At the end of September we had our first Leadership Conference.  We traveled to  Kidwelly in Carmarthenshire where we spent the day in the pleasant surroundings of a Country Hotel called ‘Gwenllian Court’.  The day was great and the teaching was very practical and well received.  Another outcome of the day was a realization that we have the facilities  to put on such an event ourselves and so we are in the process of setting the building up as a potential conference centre with the hope that the building will be used by even more people.  We have two very pleasant rooms which are self contained with toilet facilities and there is a chair lift access to the Gallery.  We have produced some literature on this and so if anyone is thinking of running a small course, an exhibition  or a boardroom meeting then get in touch and we’ll send you the details. [info@emmanuelchristianfellowship>co>uk]

Our plans for the Christmas period are a little up in the air at the moment.  Already planned is our Evergreen dinner which will take place on the 16th of December and once again this year we will have in-house caterers with Susan and Val doing the honors. 

On Tuesday the 15th we”ll be travelling north to Pentre where we have been invited to host a carol service in the sheltered accomodation - Llys Nazareth. 

On the 19th after our morning service [11:30am] we will once again join with the other churches in Ystrad for an open air carol service by the Star.  The Savation Army band will be aiding us in our choral exploits again this year and Terence will be giving a short address.

Our candle lit carol service will take place at 6pm that same night where we will really celebrate the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in word and in song - the children will also explain the Christmas story from their perspective too.  then we’ll join together in a Christmas Buffet.

Following on from last year we will meet together on Christmas morning and herald in the day with praise and worship and our next meting will be on Sunday afternoon [4:30pm] which will be an opportunity for anyone to tell thier story of God’s goodness and mercy which has followed them every day through 2009.  This will be followed by a ‘fairly high tea’  which, as for the last seven years, will be catered by the eldership.

And we’ll finish off the last mnute of 2009 exactly where started it from and that is in an attitude of praise and worship to the One who has not only saved us by His grace but Who has also kept us through this and evey other yaer by His grace, as we gather for our watchnight service.

Details for any of these meeting and events can be obtained in the usual way. [info@emmanuelchristianfellowship.co.uk]

All that’s left for me to say is - “Have yourselves a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and thank you for visiting us on the electronic expression of our church and why not plan to come and visit us in the new year in the real expression which is far far better:

God’s best to you all