20 Dec 2023
Members of the congregation at St Paul’s Church in Fleetville are taking a starring role in a national Church of England social media campaign encouraging people to come to church this Christmas.
The 40-second ads focus on the joy of being part of a church community, particularly at this time of year, and are featured on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.
They run up to Christmas Day and encourage people to consult AChurchNearYou.com, the church finding website. to find a local service.
Babatunde Idowu, whose family is featured in one of the films, says: “Church is a place of refuge, church is a place where you feed your heart and hear about God.
“It is a place where you go and connect with other like-minded people – people to support you even when you are down, it is just beautiful and when you sing the carols, it is always joyful.”
Sandra Thompson, a congregation member living with cancer, in another short film, said: “It is a wonderful community here of people who will love you, support you and be with you. You have that hope that God provides that he is always with you. I love singing – so carols definitely.
“There is something about the joy and exuberance of singing about God coming into this world that I absolutely love.”
Janice Entee, who features in a short film with her son Theodore, said: “It is so easy to lose sight of why we are celebrating Christmas. To come together and sing and have carols, just centres us a bit, it transports us into the reason why we are here, the reason for the season, the reason for the celebration.”
Sameer Kumar and Meeta Sonsati appear with their baby Annicka. Sameer said: “It is all about getting people together. The best thing is people from all walks of life, people respect each other. It’s just an amazing feeling, love and peace.”
Meeta added: “I absolutely love the carol service, it’s my favourite service of the year, it’s really joyful and just kicks in the spirit of Christmas for me.”
Rev Peter Crumpler, associate minister at St Paul’s said: “It was great to be able to host the Church of England’s communications team when they came to St Paul’s. “The church was decorated for Christmas at the beginning of November, we sang carols and dressed for the season. It’s so good to be part of welcoming people to church this Christmas.”
