Dr Paul Allen

It might happen when you hear your parents’ favorite Christmas carol . Immediately the song transports you out of your sterile workday back to your childhood, to a living room bursting with tinsel, gifts, and anticipation. Or maybe it happens when you smell the spices of cider moving through your house this Christmas and you half-expect the memory of your grandfather to be standing in your kitchen, bragging about his  perfect  recipe, through his playful grin. Worship with All Five Senses Of course, the memories aren’t always that idyllic. For some, they’re unwelcome intrusions into a life under construction. Good or bad, sweet or bitter, the memories still come each Christmas. Just one small trigger, and everything we’ve loved, lost, and treasured seems to swell up in our hearts. Nostalgia arrives through our senses. What we hear, see, taste, touch, and smell is the ink we use to write our mental autobiographies. We cannot escape our memories, because we cannot...

Though his work is almost universally known within the English-speaking world, Charles Jennens is virtually unknown. He was a brilliant librettist — a writer of texts to be put to music by others. Born in the year 1700, Jennens inherited his father’s vast estate and wealth, attended Oxford University, and became a gentleman scholar. He published a controversial interpretation of William Shakespeare and lived a life of extravagance and eccentricity. That could have been the end of his story, but it was not. His emergence as a brilliant librettist was driven by a sense of theological and spiritual urgency. Jennens was greatly concerned to confront the deism that was then spreading so quickly among the educated classes in England in the wake of the Enlightenment. Deism rejected the self-revelation of God in the Bible, the need of humanity for salvation, the deity of Christ, Christianity’s message of salvation, and any divine judgment to come. Deists rejected the very idea of a persona...

Christmas Eve celebrations feature Tradional Christmas carols , items, Bible reading , songs and a gospel Christmas message. Hope Church Varsity Lakes 6-7pm 175 Varsity Pde, Varsity Lakes Qld 4226. 

English: Charles Wesley (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Is your all-time favorite Christmas carol is Charles Wesley's , Hark! the Herald Angels Sing ?  I trust you will see why as we move through its stanzas and consider its message. While you may be used to the three-stanza version found in most hymnals (e.g., Psalter Hymnal #339; Trinity Hymnal #203), I will use a five-stanza version my congregation sings every Christmas Eve at our service of lessons and carols. The fact of the Incarnation of the Son of God is for us a powerful invitation to worship him. This is what the first stanza is all about. The angels sing, "Hark! The herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King; peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!" Because of their cry, we are invited to echo back: "Joyful, all ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies; with th'angelic host proclaim, Christ is born in Bethlehem!" The second stanza is a meditation on why the a...