Each year in December, even in an increasingly secular community, Christmas contrives to touch the heart, loosen the purse strings and produce a flow of generosity such as happens at no other time of the year.
Many charities report that a significantly high proportion of their annual income comes at this time.
Several of the Irish Methodist City Missions - in Dublin, Belfast, Derry and Newtownabbey - still focus their main appeal in one way or another in the weeks before Christmas. This tradition arose at a time when there were many people in the city centres whose poverty and loneliness made Christmas a time of particular hardship.
Today the Missions, like many other social agencies, find that the demands on their resources are more evenly spread through the year.
Legislation now in force in Northern Ireland and forthcoming in the Republic, will relieve the churches of responsibility for the legal registration of marriages, but it is still important for them to retain records of marriages conducted by them.
Under the title "Building Blocks", the churches have organised joint events with the Scripture Union to provide resources for Sunday school teachers and all involved in work with children.
The first of them was held in Dublin last Saturday and the second takes place at Jordanstown in Co Antrim today.
On Sunday, December 19th, Illuminate will be launched at the Methodist church in Carnalea. This is the first of a series of worship events for people over the age of 12 and it begins at 7.30 p.m.
The church's Council on Social Responsibility has urged support for the Cois Tine Card Campaign originally sponsored by the Society of African Missions. The campaign asks all concerned people to sign and send cards to their local TDs asking them to improve the treatment of asylum seekers.
ECONI has issued a small booklet entitled "What child is this?" It contains four reflections on the spiritual significance of Christmas for use by groups during the season of Advent. Copies may be had from ECONI at 1 Brunswick Street, Belfast.
The president of the church, the Rev Dr Brian Fletcher, will preach tomorrow morning at Jennymount in Belfast at a special service to mark the centenary of the church there.
On Wednesday, he will be at the World Methodist Peace Award in Atlanta, Georgia. This year's award goes to Habitat for Humanity International.