One of the United Reformed Church’s (URC) General Assembly Moderators, Derek Estill, led the Church’s educational visit to Israel and Palestine in September.

The group had the opportunity to observe and hear at first hand the plight of indigenous Christians living in the occupied Palestinian territories. This included seeing the consequences of the expansion of Israeli settlements which are illegal under international law.

Christmas isn’t Christmas unless it involves giving to people who can’t give back. Anything else is just swapping, really.

So, it’s time for Reform’s (the United Reformed Church’s magazine) reverse Advent calendar.

What do you make of the virgin birth? Fact or fable? And either way, what is it all about? This December, Reform’s ‘A good question’ panel get to grips that bit of Christmassy theology.

The panel features the Revd Matt Stone, Minister of Herringthorpe United Reformed Church (URC), Rotherham, South Yorkshire; Lawrence Moore, Mission and Discipleship Consultant for the URC’s North Western Synod and founder of iChurch – a URC service that resources local churches and helps them get online; The Revd Carla A Grosch-Miller, a URC Minister and practical theologian, educator and poet; and Anjum Anwar, a teacher who also worked as Dialogue Development Officer for Blackburn Cathedral from 2007 to 2016.

The Revd Fiona Thomas, Secretary for Education and Learning for the United Reformed Church, reflects on Christmases spent in remote villages in South India.

Each year we construct Christmas, building it up from memories, rituals and expectations.

In the early 80s I celebrated four Christmases in remote villages in South India with a small team of international development volunteers. For the villagers, Christmas Day was a normal working day – they’d turn up at the office and expect us to be having meetings and working as usual on transforming society. So we did what we could to make the day special.