MORE people will celebrate Christmas in local Church of England churches than will roar on Pompey over the holiday period.

Tobi Langdown and Indi Rowley, from St John the Baptist Primary School, gaze into the manager at the Labyrinth in St John's Church.

Pupils from St George's C of E Primary School in Portsea sing at the carol service held at Fratton Park

Up to 50,000 worshippers will cram into Anglican churches in south-east Hampshire and the Isle of Wight on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to mark Jesus’ birth. That’s twice the capacity of Fratton Park – which means church congregations will be larger than the crowds for Portsmouth FC’s vital holiday fixtures against Liverpool and Arsenal added together.

And that doesn’t even take into account the thousands who will also attend carol services across the region to sing traditional carols. Full details of carol services in Anglican churches across the diocese can be found here.

The comparison with Pompey’s crowds means that it’s fitting that 3,000 worshippers turned up at Fratton Park for a special carol service on December 21. Hundreds of people committed themselves to Jesus or re-confirmed their faith at the event.

Pompey legend Linvoy Primus, who has just announced his retirement from the game, and the evangelist J John were the special guests at the event organised by Linvoy’s charity Faith and Football. The Salvation Army band led the carols, and pupils from Miltoncross School in Milton, Cottage Grove Primary School, Southsea, and St George’s C of E Primary School, Portsea, sang.

The local branch of Asda contributed 3,000 mince pies and free mulled wine was also on offer. It's set to become an annual Christmas event. 

Portsmouth Cathedral is once again holding three identical carol services – at 3pm on December 19, and at 7.30pm on December 22 and 23 – to fit in more than 2,000 worshippers. Portsmouth Cathedral Choir is leading the singing for the Services of Nine Lessons and Carols.  The cathedral is also holding two identical crib services for children on Christmas Eve, at 3pm and 4.30pm.

Worshippers in Emsworth organised a Living Advent Calendar for the whole town. There’s something happening every day from December 1-24, helping families to think about the season as they count down to the big day. 

The events include hands-on activities, such as making Christingles and Advent candles, baking gingerbread men, and writing Christmas cards to send to prisoners.

Father Christmas is standing outside the Co-op store on two Saturdays – not distributing gifts, but collecting them from shoppers for homeless people and prisoners. There’s also Advent meditations, a Nativity walk, and Christmas story-telling.

Advent was given a modern twist at St John’s Church, Rowlands Castle, this year. They laid out an Advent ‘labyrinth’ around the church for the second successive year. It involves worshippers using an MP3 player to guide them around a series of prayer installations, each of which helps them to think and pray about the Christmas story.

This year’s event, from December 10-13, was a ‘Sat-Nativity’, where the journey to the nativity scene in the stable was done in the style of following a sat-nav device. Dozens of visitors were able to reflect on the Christmas story by lighting candles, eating dates, gazing at a portrait of Joseph by local artist Carol Madgwick, and finally seeing the nativity scene.

Among the visitors were 50 Year 5 and Year 6 pupils from St John the Baptist C of E Primary School in Rowlands Castle. Some of their teachers were so impressed, they returned that evening to sample the labyrinth experience again.

There was a special carol service at St Mary’s Church, Fratton, at noon on December 18. Generous worshippers handed over gift vouchers so homeless people, vulnerable families and asylum seekers can buy themselves Christmas presents.

The annual scheme, run by Churches Homeless Action, raises more than £8,000 a year in gift vouchers from shops such as Argos, Tesco and Boots. They are then to agencies such as the Haslar Visitors Group, St Simon’s Church in Southsea, the Portsmouth Foyer and Havant Women’s Aid, who give them to individuals they work with who otherwise would receive no Christmas presents.

And the Portsmouth diocese also features on an online Advent calendar put together by the national Church of England. The website – www.whywearewaiting.com – has been put together to showcase the Church’s commitment to preserving the environment and tackling climate change. It includes videos, podcasts, Bible passages and prayers.

A new piece of video footage is available each day. Our diocese’s commitment to the environment was featured on December 22.