Our project is designed to be an immersive and interactive experience.  We go on a journey back in time to Bethlehem.  We travel from the modern day asking the question as to why nativity sets are really quite weird.  We then go to Joseph’s Workshop, we visit Mary’s House, a Shepherd’s field, the Maji’s tent, meet a very grumpy innkeeper and finally enter into the stable to meet Mary, Joseph, a Shepherd, one of the Maji and most importantly the baby Jesus.  All of this to tell people the story of Christmas and give a sense of awe and wonder.
 
Who We Are:

We are a church based in Lyndhurst in the New Forest, Hampshire.  Our church has been here for 325 years and has always sought to be good news for our community.

Our vision is summed up in 3 statements:
To Be, To Go, To Give.

Inspired by the story of the woman who reaches out and touches the hem of Jesus’ garment to receive healing we believe we are called to be the garment of Christ making ourselves available to those who want to reach out and encounter God.

Following on from the Great Commission in Matthew 28 we believe we are called to go wherever and to whoever God sends us.

Drawing inspiration from numerous bible passages and especially the story of Abraham entertaining the three visitors in Genesis 18 we believe that we are called to give radical hospitality.

This means that we meet people where they are dealing with their needs first and welcoming them in regardless of who they are, what they have done and what they are still doing. 

Our vision inspires us to use what we have to make ourselves and the God we believe in available in as many different ways as possible.  We especially want to give children enriching experiences and help them to explore faith in safe and pressure free environments.  We want to tell the story and allow people to choose what they do with it, enabling them to explore, accept and even reject what has been presented to them.  
 
What We Do:

For 3 weeks in November and December every other year we transform our church buildings into Nazareth and Bethlehem.

We build theatre quality sets and fill them with different artefacts relevant to the room for example a plumb bob in Joseph’s workshop and a camel saddle in the Maji’s tent.  We create spaces for people to explore with lighting, sound, smells and even an angel that appears in mid air and speaks to the people on the tours in the Shepherd’s field.  Nothing is off limits apart from perhaps the sharp things in Joseph’s workshop.  We have a tour guide who takes the groups round and tells the story and gives some interesting facts along the way.  We use a variety of creative and performing arts to make the experience as rich as possible.    

We are open mainly for primary school aged children to come on school trips.  We are also open to the public for at least one evening and one Saturday.  We have had approximately 2500 school children come round in the years that we have done it.  On the way round the experience children collect souvenirs from each place that they visit so that they can remember what happens in each room.

We provide teachers with follow up lessons that they can take and use in their classrooms with the children’s souvenirs to embed their learning and continue the discussion.  The lessons and follow up ideas are written by a teacher in our congregation.  The whole project is built and run by volunteers, apart from the minister, most of whom are retired and give up their time to make this experience for the children.
 
Why We Do It:

We do this project for 3 reasons.  The first is that we want children to be given the opportunity to know the story behind this foundational story of the Christian faith.  We do not tell anyone what to believe but just share what we believe.  The only way people can make an informed decision about anything is knowing all the facts and so we want to be able to give as many people that information in as many different mediums as possible so that the conversation can happen and people can make their own decisions. 

The second reason is that we want to preserve the wonder of childhood.  One of the key parts of the RE curriculum in England is to help children experience awe and wonder.  In a world where everything is at the touch of a button and children and adults spend a long time stuck behind screens, we wanted to create an experience that was different and sparked the imagination.  We wanted to create something which would make people think “I wonder” and create some wow moments that will feed the imagination. 

Finally, we do this because it is an attempt to add positively to the discussion.  Often, we can find ourselves grumbling about different things and define ourselves by what we are against rather than what we are for.  We do this to say what we believe and ask people to judge it and our beliefs on the merits of the Christmas account and the heart behind it.
 
We are very grateful to Westhill Endowment for helping us to continue this project and refresh and update our sets and the whole experience.