Christmas Carol Service 2009
There were more than 70 staff, students and guests who gathered on 9 December for our Christmas Carol Service in the Social Learning Zone.
Participants
Leader: Revd Phil Edwards, Co-ordinating Chaplain.
Choir: Bolton University Choir, leader Laurette Evans
Pianist: Brian Smith
Readers: Ashey Howell (Students' Union President), Lee Johnson (Pastoral Assistant), Karen Openshaw (Chaplain) and Ephraim Thomas (Christian Union President).
During the service, Phil asked a number of people:
1) What are you looking forward to at Christmas? and
2) What does Christmas mean to you?
Here is a summary of the answers:
Joel Iyorwa (On placement from the Evangelical Church of West Africa):
1) I'm looking forward to singing the Christmas Carols, they make so much sense and are quite melodious. I look forward to the special Christmas dinner...the turkey and gravy and so on, and i just like the aura of Christmas...every one is happy, and it's just good.
2) Christmas means to me a special time of the year to reflect back and to celebrate the birth of Jesus, who came to be my saviour. It's a time to reminisce and rejoice and get excited about this powerful fact.
Nick Tyldesley (Pastoral Assistant, Quaker):
1) I am looking forward to: the bright lights and glitter and anticipating the family traditions - going to a performance of the Messiah, a Panto, taking out the familiar if battered tree decorations, pork pie on Christmas day for breakfast. These connect me to family and community which is what Christmas is about.
2) Christmas is a time of celebration and optimism. The Christmas messages reinforce our beliefs that are there during the year - particularly the notion of "goodwill to all people". It is a time for reflection - happy memories of a child's view of Christmas in the past; the poignancy of toasting absent friends and looking forward to longer days and Spring time. But I am acutely aware that for my best friend from school, Christmas is not going to be a happy time as the anniversary approaches of his eldest son's death on a university ski trip The family find it hard to engage with the bright lights, feasting and good cheer. All I can offer is some sense of understanding their grief.
Quakers believe there is "that of God in everyone" and "holding people in the light" and Christmas ought to reinforce these beliefs which emphasise the sense of being together in a deeply spiritual sense.
Stephen Lingwood (Chaplain, Unitarian)
(Text not available)
Unfortunately, the camera used by our University Photographer was being repaired, so these photographs were taken on Phil's camera phone:
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