1 December 2024: Christingle Service
Our church has a long association with The Children’s Society, dating back to at least the 1970s when our then Rector and his wife had two children they had adopted through the Society.
We held our Christingle Service this morning in aid of The Children’s Society. This type of service started as a tradition of the Moravian church but was adopted and adapted by the Society for use in British churches around this time of year. A Christingle is an orange topped by a candle, to symbolise the Light of Christ, a red ribbon around the middle, symbolising the blood that Christ shed for us and four cocktail sticks bearing sweets and fruits, symbolising the four seasons and the bounty with which the Lord provides us.
This was a joint service attended by both our Sunday Special and our traditional congregations with elements designed to appeal to both. The church was crowded. The theme of the service was light. We started by lighting the first of our Advent candles, with versicles read by one of the younger members of Sunday Special with responses read by the whole congregation.
In lieu of a sermon we had a talk by someone who volunteers with the Children’s Society. She told us that the origins of the Society go back to 1881 when a London vicar went out to look for two brothers who, contrary to their habit, had not attended Sunday School. He was shocked to find them begging on the street. Their father had left their mother, leaving her to cope with their seven children under the age of 11. The vicar took the matter to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of England Children’s Society, as it was then called, was founded. Today the Society is involved in all sorts of activities designed to help and protect vulnerable children and their families.