New church.

Today, the first Sunday of Christmas, we visited the fourth church in our Benefice - the Denholme Shared Church. 
A former Independent chapel it is shared by C of E, Baptist and United Reform church communities of the village of Denholme.
The other two churches are our former sister church, St Matthew’s in Wilsden and the church of my childhood, where I was baptised and married,  St John’s in Cullingworth. Plus ours of course.
The four villages are just a few miles apart and the churches are now part of a United Benefice. Our new rector has decided that when we have a fifth Sunday in the month (about four in the year) we will have a joint service in one of the four.
Today it was Denholme and it was a first visit for me. A lovely building and a full congregation (they ran out of books) with the opportunity to meet some people we don’t see so often. We sat with an older couple who no longer come to us as he has stopped driving. They told us the magnificent looking organ is now just a facade of pipes.
A good idea and a good way to draw our church family closer together.

(Yesterday Grace sent me some pictures from their journey home on Friday. Eda sharing the back of the car with bear and then later after a visit with friends en route where she was gifted the actual Tiger who came to tea! Think she was pretty happy!)