It all began with a sermon last Christmas. Our vicar told us he'd received a number of Christmas cards thanking him for 'bringing joy to our parishes', at which he became quite serious and said, "It is not me bringing the joy; the joy is in you - I am just trying to draw it out of you!"

This sparked a remembrance of the story of Pollyanna, which introduces the idea of The Rejoicing Texts: All the verses in the Bible that tell us to Rejoice, Be glad in the Lord and Shout for Joy! According to the story, there are eight hundred such verses in the Bible. Some of us wanted to find out if this was true, and so we began a Bible study project aiming to find all of the Rejoicing Texts - we are still compiling our results and hope to produce them in to a booklet.

A year of Joy was declared and we decided, because we have so much talent in our parishes, to hold a Festival of Joy: joyful music and singing, an art exhibition, floral displays inspired by Rejoicing Texts, joyful crafts and activities, the film of Pollyanna (2003), and, of course, lots of tea and cake!

For our Lenten Bible study course we chose the Joy of the Gospel to help use explore our theme further. We continued with a Sermon Series on Joy throughout October and now we approach Christmas again, that most joyful of times!

During the year, a small Miracle of Joy occurred: a local photographer found the word JOY in a frozen cobweb on the bridge near the church. In the image, it looks as though the word JOY has fallen slightly from where it was originally written. The word is also not in focus, as it was originally part of a larger image the photographer had taken. In these ways, it seems to represent Human Joy: fallen and not always in focus, but can be found if one looks for it!

We have made the image into a postcard to raise funds for essential building repairs and these are now available in the church.

After almost a year of thinking about Joy, we feel we are just getting started! If you would like to find more Joy in life, we look forward to welcoming you at a service, prayer meeting, or any of our other events.

With God's blessings of Joy