Posada













































On Monday evening The United Church and St John's Kirkheaton had a fantastic night as we had a life size 'Posada', taking the message of Christmas to the people of Kirkheaton. Starting with craft and games and dressing up as Mary and Joseph and wise men, shepherds and angels we set off through the village of Kirkheaton led by a real live donkey.

Posada is Spanish for 'Inn' and is a Mexican custom of remembering the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem. The Church Army have adopted this idea by encouraging churches to pass round a figures of Mary, Joseph and the donkey around the homes of the parishes. We decided to go one further and make it life size and hopefully took out a strong message of what Christmas was all about.

On the way we called at people's homes and a local 'inn' to sing carols. Through drama at the journey end we discovered that Angels had declared Jesus to be: 'The Christ', 'the Lord', 'the Son of God' and 'Jesus (the Lord is salvation), because he will save his people from their sins'. Whilst connecting with people's sentimental feelings of the baby in the manger it pointed away from this to the cross. By the end of the procession we had well over a hundred people amongst us, a good number of whom I am sure, were non Christians.

I hope to strengthen this next year by handing out tracts and inviting people to another evangelistic event.

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