We joined a throng of Aucklanders at St Paul’s on Sunday for their Carol Service. It was good to participate in the carols and listen to the Christmas story with so many others. The musicians were very talented – the only church we’ve been to where there was an electric guitar solo half way through a carol! And there was a full choir which led the singing with real gusto.

Particularly poignant after this year’s refugee crisis, was a video church members had made in Bethlehem recently showing the massive wall that runs alongside the city and the everyday struggles of those who live there. A reminder that Jesus too was born into an occupied country with violence, division and conflict and was a refugee in Egypt….