We are doing all we can, along with our wider Swindon community, to celebrate God’s amazing world through practical acts of care and kindness looking after its future recognising the enormous world-wide challenges caused by climate change and the Covid 19 pandemic.

This year, our good friend, Gervin Senior has created a full size replica stable outside the church. The wood comes from discarded fencing panels and local rubbish sites. We even have a star hanging above it and an eco-manger within it!

In Gervin’s words; ‘ Every problem is an opportunity, I am grateful to members of the Swindon community for helping with this project with practical gifts. I hope it gives everybody a lift this Christmas.

The words on the front are;
• From Bethlehem to Swindon with love
• Jesus gives us comfort and joy
• God is with us

We want to be clear- Christmas is not cancelled this year-we are just doing things differently. Our priority is keeping people safe and telling the Good News of Christmas that God has come to us in his son Jesus Christ in a lively contemporary way’.
‘We are enormously grateful to Gervin for masterminding this creative community stable. We hope and pray that people of all ages will engage with this stable’s simplicity and atmosphere and have unforgettable memories by and in our stable which is a gift to our Old Town Swindon parish.’

You are invited to bring:

• A small single object: e.g. rope, stone, pine cone, branch and place it in the manger.
• (It should not include words or identifiers, it’s a personal symbolic gift.)
• A prayer or a longing. A desire for Christ to meet with you.

In this way we build an altar of personal hopes and dreams which will be a Covid safe, environment enhancing and not detracting from the installation itself.

Do come and sit awhile in the stable for your own meditation and prayer, you may want to come and listen to some carols on your phone

Our prayer for people leaving offerings is that they might know the reality of God’s presence with us through His incarnation and that their spirits might be renewed as they join their offering with others.

This week, leading up to Christmas day we are inviting families to dress up as Bethlehem characters and put their photos on our Christ Church Facebook page.

We recognise that many people are social distancing therefore our prayer is that every home may be Bethlehem and every heart a manger. The stable also reminds us of our Bible verse for the year and is part of our strategic plan to develop as an eco-congregation. You can read some of our eco ideas here.