Star Wise and seeing the light

Yesterday, to my surprise Andy and Mike put the Christmas tree up.  The photo does not show the flashing lights.  So after a year or two of trying to avoid having a tree (pagan fertility symbol) - we have one again, as we did last year and I will have to make the best of it!

Last night Jo and I went to see 'Star Wise' at Billericay Baptist Church.  Follow the link to find out what I thought about it, but I can tell you before you do that it was better than sitting watching TV. 

"The people living in darkness have seen a great light" (Matthew 4:16a) was not the text for this morning, although it should have been.  When I picked up my bible to follow the reading I could not focus on it at all.  It was then that I realised that the lights in the back half of church were switched off.  We were literally living in darkness.  Thankfully the front half was lit and the spotlights used to high light the cross were switched on, so the front of the church was very bright. The Bible reading was also on the screen, so I could follow it there. Sitting in the relative dimness of an unlit Christ Church has more of a feel of the theatre, and my mind went back to the services with the Bill Legend band.  How nice it would be to have a rock band leading the worship again.

Warner spoke on many different aspects of Isaiah 35:1-10.  I expect it was a good sermon but I was distracted by thoughts of Joseph, the subject of next weeks sermon, and martyrs, probably the subject for the following week.  I will have to listen to it again when it is posted on the website.