Next weekend sees the first Sunday of Advent when Christians anticipate and remember the birth of Jesus. Advent is a time of quiet contemplation and prayer for four weeks before the festival of Christmas itself. It has its own hymns and carols such as O Come Emanuel, which reflect this beautiful time. Christmas, at the end of December is the most joyous season as we all know and love, with feast and song as the news of Jesus’s birth brings hope and light!
This December, we are delighted to offer worship and activities to reflect both Advent and Christmas in all our villages in the Langtons and Welham Benefices.
Advent and Christmas Services for Langton and Shangton and Welham Benefices for December 2024
We have produced a Christmas card with all the details. The card will be delivered to the parishioners of St Peter’s Church this weekend, but for friends further afield, there is a PDF to download below, with all the services listed, along with a Christmas message from our Lay Incumbent, Maxine Johnson.
We are delighted that this year’s card features a remarkable photograph of the church by Melissa Johnston, taken earlier this year with an unprecedented appearance in the night sky of the Aurora Borealis. Thank you Melissa for allowing us to use your lovely image.
St Peter’s Church Aurora Sky by Melissa JohnstonChristmas message 2024
We hope you can join us for some of the services but also wish our friends and followers here who live further away, a very peaceful Advent season and a joyful Christmas when it comes. Thank you 🙏
This weekend sees the first Sunday of Advent when Christians anticipate and remember the birth of Jesus.
Advent is a time of quiet contemplation and prayer for four weeks before the festival of Christmas itself. It has its own hymns and carols such as O Come Emanuel, which reflect this beautiful time.
Christmas, at the end of December is the most joyous season as we all know and love, with feast and song as the news of Jesus’s birth brings hope and light!
This December, we are delighted to offer worship and activities to reflect both Advent and Christmas in all our villages in the Langtons and Welham Benefices.
We have produced a Christmas card with all the details. The card will be delivered to the parishioners of St Peter’s Church this weekend, but for friends further afield, there is a PDF to download below, with all the services listed, along with a Christmas message from our Lay Incumbent, Maxine Johnson.
We hope you can join us for some of the services but also wish our friends and followers here who live further away, a very peaceful Advent season and a joyful Christmas when it comes. Thank you 🙏
Reading my comments from last year’s Christmas message, I was hoping that things were starting to improve – now I am not so sure! 2020 will certainly go down as Annus Horribilis not only for our group of villages, but the country and the world as a whole. We certainly do not want too many of them in a one hundred year period! We all go through a bad patch from time to time for whatever reason, but for all of us to be thrown into a maelstrom not of our making, is a rare thing indeed.
2021 began as a year of great hope for a return to normal life, which it has, but with one hand tied behind our backs! We try to get our lives back on track, only to find we end up in countless dead ends of red tape and officialdom – and all for our own good! Will this be the new norm? We pray not.
If we feel our lives have not returned to anything like normal, we can look to someone who is a constant source of continuity and comfort. For all his run-ins with officials, Jesus understood that life is not easy, but is made a whole lot easier by being at peace, knowing that you have a Father who loves and cares for you. The saying, ‘a problem shared, is a problem halved’, is never truer than when praying for guidance and support throughout difficult times. We have certainly needed to find peace in this chaos, I know I have.
In Church Langton in 2020 and also 2021, we have been blessed by the arrivals of new babies to several of our young families. Speaking as a child of the village myself, it’s been wonderful to see these precious new lives begin, as mine did, in this most beautiful and peaceful part of the world, and to welcome them into our family community.
At this Christmas time, when we are reminded that humanity was saved by a baby and the peace, joy and love shone around; I pray that you let that love rub off on you, so you see life maybe, in a way you once did, or as a revelation.
Maxine Johnson, Lay Reader
Service pattern for Christmas for our churches The Langtons and Shangton
We are delighted to invite you and your families to attend in person – following current Covid-19 guidelines for England.
Church Langton
ST. PETER’S CHURCH LANGTON 12th December – Communion Revd Martin Hathaway 10.30am 19th December – Carols, Readings and Communion Revd Martin Hathaway 10.30am
Tur Langton
ST. ANDREW’S TUR LANGTON 12th December – Carols/Nativity Maxine Johnson 6.00pm 24th December – Midnight Mass Revd Martin Hathaway 11.00pm
Thorpe Langton
ST. LEONARD’S THORPE LANGTON 19th December – Carol Service Canon Philip Norwood 6.00pm 25th December – Family Communion Revd Martin Hathaway 10.30am
Shangton
ST. NICHOLAS SHANGTON 19th December – Carol Service Tim Tregunno, Chaplain to Oakham School 6.00pm
Christmas worship in the Langtons and Shangton Benefice
St Peter’s woolly nativity
A special date for your diaries in 2022: We are delighted to invite you to enjoy and sing! Handel’s ‘Messiah’ Performed by Knighton Chamber Orchestra and Community Choir on Saturday 14th May 2022 at 7.30 pm. In aid of St. Peter’s church building fund Tickets: £5 to sing; £15 to listen Book tickets: or register your interest by email to r.folwell@btinternet.com
St Peter's Church, Church Langton 