Sunday worship 18 Dec: 'bingo', shepherds, baptism, and carols

A busy and fun Sunday! Here's a wee round-up:

Morning worship:
At our rather packed all-age, informal morning service we told the Christmas story
by playing a game of 'Christmas Bingo'.  We heard a reading from Matthew's Gospel that was
not unlike an episode of 'Who do you think you are', and discovered some surprising people
in the midst of the long list of names in Jesus' family tree.  In our other reading we
heard of angels visiting shepherds in Luke 2:8-20, and later, had an imagined reflection
from one of the shepherds about that night. He was rather surprised that angels would
trouble to visit folk such as him, given his own people looked down on the likes of shepherds;
maybe God's love was for everyone, not just those who thought they were 'respectable.'
We also had great fun welcoming young Innes into God's family through the sacrament of
baptism. And, we unfurled the last of our lovely Advent/Christmas banners, so beautifully made
by our craft group.

Community Carol singing, with Junction 13
From 1.30 - 5.15, folk from our community choir, 'Junction 13', managed to carol their way
around 5 of our 9 villages in the parish:
Abington, Crawfordjohn, Crawford, Leadhills, and Wanlockhead.
Huge thanks to our singers, for their tireless efforts - and particular thanks to the Foleys for organising us re. music and a spot of supper before evening worship.
Thanks, too, for the hospitality provided by Abington Store, Colebrooke Arms, and Hopetoun Arms and their much-welcome mince pies, choc. Yule log, lots of tea/coffee - which kept us all keeping on.
We managed to raise c.£160 for Cancer Research. Thanks for the kind donations! :)

and... evening worship: our Carol Service in Scotland's highest village
We finished the day with our annual Carol Service, in Scotland's highest village, Wanlockhead,
followed by some fab home baking. Thanks, as ever, to our friends from Leadhills Silver Band
[from Scotland's second highest village!] and to the fabulous Mary Hamilton, for providing the
music. And thanks too, to: Teresa Brasier, who put the service together, and to all the readers.
Below is a snippet of our final carol for the evening - apol's for the wobbly camera work on the
small Android phone!