This morning’s service was nearly cancelled due to lack of water – or too much of it! Due to the recent cold snap in Northamptonshire, the outside tap in the Church car park was found to be running full bore and jammed open! The car park was getting soggy, and everyone was looking around for a stop tap.

In the end, the water was switched off at the meter in the street, until a plumber can be called on Monday, so we were left with no water in the Church Buildings. The service was shortened, just in case toilets were required, and the Church Secretary came out with a new catch phrase, but you will have to ask him what it was!

I am sure you will agree with me it is good to have lighter nights and mornings as the New Year progresses rapidly. Just over a month ago we enjoyed as a Church a happy Christmas season, with a variety of services that enables a lot of us and our friends to truly celebrate the Christmas story together. It is times like this that reminds us of the importance of buildings that are fit for the purpose of worship and gathering together.

The year may be new but many things remain the same. Responsibilities and commitments carry over into the new year, as do health and other issues in our lives. The Church buildings remain near the top of our New Year agenda as the building committee grapple with the details and the reality of the problems.

As Christians we do not believe that we carry this burden alone. We move into the future and know that God himself is present to lead and to guide us. Indeed, James chapter one reminds us, issues and problems actually strengthen our faith as we are honest and recognise we cannot do this by ourselves. We may (wrongly) muddle through the normal concerns of Church life, but when the whole fabric of our building is up in the air, we know we need special help from the Lord. We can also notice if we look around there remains other jobs that need doing, people that need encouragement, and a gospel that needs to be told to others.

We cannot rest on our laurels or on the commitment of others in the past or the present because the New Year beckons us to use and invest wisely our time and talents to ensure a rich eternal harvest. The economists tell us there are few good places to invest in 2012, so why not invest in the church at Carey, where moth and rust do not corrupt?

The dividends paid will be higher than you think!

May the Lord bless you and yours in the New Year, and may it be that we have the wisdom to know the way to go, as well as the courage and faith to go there. We have noted with Jonah over the month of January, God does give free choice. He did support Jonah and he will support and bless us, if we choose the right way, the way he wants us to go. I am also encouraged by Jonah, as I know even if we make bad choices the Lord will continue to pursue us and encourage a change of mind.

Just a quick post to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

 

From today’s service, Carey has gone into “winter mode”. As the Church building is very difficult to keep warm on these cold winter mornings, Sunday Services will be held in the nice warm Church Hall, where the gas heaters warm the room in about half an hour. The Primary & Beginners Junior Church group have moved to the Church Room temporarily.

Normal service will be resumed in the Spring

From all of us at Carey, we wish all of our visitors, friends and guests a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Please visit us on line and at the Church in 2012, you will be sure of a warm welcome mainly because we will be worshipping in the hall instead of the Church as it’s difficult to maintain a reasonable temperature in the Church! Services will return to the Church in the Spring.

WOW!! What a weekend for our celebrations.

From the comments I have heard since the weekend, the arrangements were just about balanced right, there was something for everyone from Saturday morning‟s fun day for the children to the “ Songs of Praise” service.

The fun day was a new experience for Carey and proved to be a success, twenty children between the ages of 5 and 14 enjoyed a variety of activities all centred around the wise man building his house upon the rocks. These activities included sand play, biscuit decorating, bracelet making, and Jenga for the younger ones and house building with cardboard boxes for the older ones.

In the evening we enjoyed a concert of varied acts with Joan Carnell singing “concert hall” style songs, a comedian with some cracking jokes, two short plays and a instrumental duet, then of course there was Dame Nellie Cooper and her caterpillar “Cecil”, a must see video!!

On Sunday we enjoyed two worship services, the morning a family service for all.

In the evening 17 hymns were sung in just over the hour with Ken Barley returning to play the organ. All the hymns were bid for totalling over £200 and over £1000 was raised over the weekend towards the building fund.

Over the three weeks leading up to the weekend many artefacts, photos and documents were displayed around the church and brought back many memories of the history of Carey and along with the publicity in the local Evening Telegraph it resulted in contact from old members and friends alike.

There are too many people to thank, with many people helping at the different events, but the family of Carey pulled together to make another memorable occasion in the history of the church.

There are many photos and videos still to be seen and it is hoped to have a commemorative book of photos available soon along with DVD‟s of each service and the concert either individually or as a box set!! All to raise money for the Centenary Appeal.

Although the weekend was about the past hundred years, it was a springboard for the future. We now have to concentrate on that future, raising the money and improving the church buildings and making it “Fit for Purpose” in the 21st Century.

A friend of mine has decided to repaint his banisters up the stairs and along the landing.

It is quite a job, as he has decided to go for the natural look, which means stripping down the paintwork to the bare wood then staining and varnishing the result. It is long and tedious, but preparation is the key. Remove the old paint from all 26 uprights, plus the handrails and the rest will be easy! It is in the preparation that the job will succeed or fail. But it is not easy or quick.

It is not surprising at this time of the year we should consider the long preparations that God made for his son over many years. We will also travel through advent preparing not for the Christmas dinner we shall eat, nor the presents we shall give or even the cards we need to write, but to prepare ourselves, our hearts and minds, to receive the baby Jesus into our lives again. To consider what this means, as with all new babies, what changes this involves and what chaos will arrive in our lives with the baby and his demands on our time. Life is never the same again, new parents tell me.

It is also a time of joy. A time to celebrate that in Jesus Christ, God is with us. We will not now be left out in the cold, lost in our sins and ourselves, but are able to embrace light and life and a new future that Jesus brings with him, and offers to us.

I am sure that like me you are looking forward to the many ways at Carey we shall express our joy and hope as we sing carols, hear God’s word and be involved in a variety of ways with the message of Christmas. To tell the good news that Jesus has come to save us from our sins and to bring in his kingdom.

The first Christmas was possible because ordinary people allowed Jesus to come in and to disrupt their relatively quiet but busy lives. Are we available to be used and led by our heavenly Father or are we too busy at the moment?

Jane and I wish all friends of Carey a very Happy Christmas and a peaceful new year

Well it’s almost here – Carey’s Centenary celebration weekend. November 1911 saw the stone laying on the Church building on the corner of King St and Nelson St, next to the Nelson St Chapel (which is now the Church Hall).

So far, Carey has been featured in the Kettering Evening Telegraph’s Retro feature, with 2 pages of pictures & text showcasing the Carey Centenary Exhibition.

Still to come, on Saturday 19th November the Childrens’ Fun Day and the Carey Capers Concert. Then on Sunday the Morning All Ages Service, and in the evening, we have the Songs of Praise service, featuring the “Bid a Hymn” where people have been bidding to have their favourite hymns sung. The highest bidding hymns will be sung, and all proceeds to the Centenary Building Fund.

For further details, take a look at the Centenary pages of the site.

During November there will an exhibition in the Church and Church Room with artefacts, pictures and documents from the past 100 years of our Church building. If all goes to plan the exhibition will open on Sunday 4th November and will be open up to the beginning of Advent.

The Church will be opened at 09.30 each Sunday and will close around 12.30 after the service. If you would like the church open at any other time please contact Keith Mitchell (07777 637988) or one of the Centenary Committee and they will try to arrange something for you.

Our aim in 2012 and beyond is similar as we move forward in faith to upgrade the site to be suitable for the 21st century .

Our treasurer and Building Committee Chairman, Paul Greenaway, recently signed on the dotted line as the Church has appointed Charles Ridley to project manage and oversee the work to produce a structural and measured survey and a feasibility study. Once we have these surveys and studies we can assess our options and make decisions, probably in the new year.

Charles is an ex-BB boy, going through the Junior section with Sheila Farrow.

 

For further information, visit the Centenary pages at http://careycentenary.wordpress.com/

 

As you know this year at the Harvest weekend we were keen to raise as much cash as we could for Christian Aid to help those people we see on TV in so much need. We collected and we sold goods to raise over £300 in total, about 15% up on last year, which was great!

 

We received less produce and tins than previously but more cash. The tins and dry goods like pasta, were earmarked for Homestart, situated in the William Knibb Centre, so they can do as they always do at Christmas, give out small food parcels to local families with young children near to Christmas.

 

This year was odd, there was less goods and tins but what we had was used in 3 different ways. A few tins were sold for cash, some were taken by me to Homestart, and some ended up at the homeless centre – St Judes, in Northampton Road.

 

I was on the way to Homestart with our goods but on the way I found myself at a meeting of St Judes where the homeless people spend their days down Northampton Road. The day I was there, six young men who were sleeping rough nearby, were being fed and I was asked if I know of anyone who had a few spare tins of veg to supplement what was on offer. I looked in the car and was surprised to find a few tins of vegetables, peas, sweet corn, carrots, green beans and the like, I felt it right to hand it over in the name of Carey and then took the rest to Homestart, before I met anyone else!

 

So this year the harvest produce has blessed many different people and makes me realise that maybe we need to think outside the box in future years as the recession hits and the needs in our community escalate.

I have been looking at the order of service for the stone laying for our church building on the 4th November 1911, exactly 100 years ago. The day included celebrations in both the afternoon and the evening.

In the evening two sermons were preached with the choir singing an anthem in between. Some meeting! as after a further hymn and collection, a third sermon! There were a number of great preachers on hand for all that preaching, together with the Fuller Silver Band and a tea served at a cost of 6d, that is 2.5 pence in today’s money!

There was the wish that offerings for the building work should be generous so that the church would not have to face large debts as it opened for use in 1912.

It is surprising how similar the aspirations of the church are 100 years later. We too wish to serve our community. We too like a good sing and a nice tea! The costs may have risen, but the scale of project and the numbers of people involved are similar, as with the hope that debt will not hang over the life of the church when the work has been completed.

We still have the desire here at Carey to serve our local community, to be there for our neighbours. Although we may cut out a sermon or two, we still wish to proclaim the message of Jesus and his love for us in word and song.

One of the hymns our forefathers sang celebrated the building of the church, as well as the building up of us all to be the real church of God on earth, living stones built on the deep foundations of prayer in the grace of Christ, to become a people amongst whom the weary and troubled find true rest and hope.

As we start the next 100 years may we remain true to our calling here at Carey, to be like living stones built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

I Peter 2 continues:- “we are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation a people belonging to God that we may declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light, once we were not a people but now we are the people of God”. Whatever the state of our building may our hearts be in good repair! May the Lord bless us as we move forward into his future.