Last updated: January 25, 2009

Christmas Theatre - Year-Round Christmas
Christmas lasts only one day – what a pity. And why just on 25th December? Why we don't know anything more exact? That's a pity too. Why Christmas isn't ofter, several times in a year, every month? Because we would be sick of it after a while. And that would be pity. But Christmas is every day, only different and in a different way! And that isn't a pity. And why we have Christmas every day and why it doesn't become ordinary, that was this year's theatre play about, performed by Sunday-school children. The author was Jiri Slouka, music was composed by Filip Klinecky. The theatre play trained the children of Sunday-school together with young congregation members. They played it on Saturday 15th December 2007 in the evangelic congregation in Cesky Brod and on Sunday 16th December in the Strasnice chapel. The chapel was full of participants and their opinion at the end confirmed that they understood well. The text of the play and songs, included score, you can download from - kocna.cz/sbor/div_2007.pdf".


Advent Sunday Afternoon
The Advent meet for all generations was as usual prepared by youth. The congregation meet on 2nd Advent Sunday 9th December 2007 was started by the biblical reflection of Dan Palenik. Daniela Stolarova prepared the children theatre play „Gift of a Young Shepherd“, Strasnice quartet played Slavic dances by Antonin Dvorak and Tomas Najbrt wrote youth theatre play „Merriment and Happiness wishes Herod.“ The programme of the Advent meet was completed with singing of Christmas songs, ample refreshment and a tombola for support of diaconie centre Ratolest.


The visit of the Synodal Senior Joel Ruml
Joel Ruml, the Synodal Senior of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, was the guest of our congregation on the last church year's Sunday, 25th November 2007. In his preaching he emphasized, that it is the open story of our lives with the inducement of God's love, which creates the main theme of the end of the church year. So the „end“ becomes the new beginning and the continuation of promising perspective. There were other themes too, coming up in a lively conversation after the sermon: the role of the church amidst secular society, the life of our church in various regions of our country, the richness of Czech evangelical religiousness, the atmosphere of Czech ecumenism, the relationship with foreign churches and also the question of property injustice redress in the relationship church – state.


Prayer for Home – Ecumenical Pilgrimage on Rip
The Ecumenical Council of Churches in cooperation with other Christian churches in the Czech Republic prepared an ecumenical prayer meeting on the hill Rip, on Sunday 28th October 2007, with the day theme – Prayer for Home. The whole-day project offered a varied cultural and spiritual programme. From 14 to 15:30 hrs. a live TV broadcast ran on CT2 channel. The aim of this action was to unite Christians and Non-Christians under the idea common to all of us - our country as a place, where we live. At the same time the organizers wanted to present churches to television audiences not only as dignified and serious priests and fault-finders, but also as a community that is able to play, sing and enjoy itself.


Children-Trip to Dol u Libcic
For a wonderful trip, on Saturday 20th October 2007, we can thank Daniel Titera, who prepared for us „A Day Full of Bees.“ We arrived to Dol u Libcic with a ferry over Vltava. The children learned there a lot about bees, they saw a queen bee and tasted many sorts of true bee honey. The children with help of various colour strips turned themselves in bees, played a lot of games and of course we grilled us sausages too.


Congregation Weekend in Chotebor
The traditional congregation weekend in Chotebor took place this year too - in the second weekend in October (from 5th to 7th October 2007). On Saturday afternoon we made a trip to „Secska“ dam, to the castle-ruin Oheb and we made a several kilometres long walk through the forest of Highlands. Mushroom pickers found here a rich offer including real ceps, and that all in the forest only several meters off the camp. Evenings were dedicated to singing with guitar, to the usual camp-fire and to discussions e.g. with five students of our congregation on the study at theological college of Charles University.


A Visit from Swedish Kungälv
The Sunday sermon at the beginning of the school year 2nd September 2007 was livened up by the girls of the choir „Sonora“ (choirmaster Lena Brattgard), from the evangelic Lutheran congregation in Kungälv. Our guests sang church music songs in English and Swedish (Ben. Marcello, Charles Knox, J. Willcocks, Nancy Hill Cobb). The sites of the choir can be visited on the address - http://hem3.passagen.se/sonora/.


The Camp of Strasnice Summer-School in Valtinov
This year the camp of Strasnice Summer-School (19.-26.8.2007) took place in Vysocina (Highlands) in the village of Valtinov. Sorgs, the embodied evil, dominated gradually our country and so we had to set out for a journey from our souther situated village up to the North, to the mountains, to an old palace of the emperor Naba and the empress Camina, where we could, according to a legend, find some help. On our travel we had gradually to find seven hidden scepters. 18 children participating in the camp had a good time under the leadership of Ben Klinecky and his 5 assistants.


A Week of Youth in Valtinov
This year's mountains of youth (5.-11.8.2007) weren't mountains in fact. The highest peak of the Czech Canada is only a bit over 600 m and even on it we didn't climb. In spite of that the sport value of the stay was high; 20 km walks ( e.g. catacombs in Slavonice, castle ruin Landstejn etc.) had their sport value. The evenings at Valtinov rectory were filled with the text of prof. Hromadka from the year 1925 „ The Main Protestant Principles“. Young readers had a lively dialogue with this old text.


Strasnice Youth on Luznice River
This year's river boating of youth (29.7-4.8.2007) wasn't river boating at all, because there wasn't water. On walking Luznice river we didn't need any boat, but the more sport and man's tenacity. And so we walked a bit through the river, sometimes we had to laugh at it, another time we whimpered... But we mastered it and at the end we could say, we had a good time. This time it was with a greater group, which was more demanding (the capacity of the river boating was full long time ahead and so when somebody fell away the replacement was found immediately...). Many thanks to Ben, who prepared and managed this affair. We are looking forward to the next year – without any fear about the river boating and only with a bit of fear about water. In any case the next year we are going to paddle a boat on some super river.


Weekend's Children-Camp in Hvozdnice
The topics of this year's traditional weekend of Strasnice Sunday-School (from 8th to 10th June 2007) was the rescue of Alexander Selkirk, the archetype of all robinsons. The leaders – teachers of two boat crews, 15 children altogether - prepared the programme with the series of plays. The hight point of the weekend was a night-play accompanied by a theatre-performance and of course the Sunday-sermon. Everybody could expect, that the children saved their imaginary friend Selkirk. They liked the weekend, which brought a good feeling for all, who had prepared it.


Congregation Trip to Herrnhut
The destination of our this year's bus-trip, on Saturday 2nd June 2007, was Herrnhut, the birth place of the renewed « Bohemian Brethren Church » - Moravian Church. We visited also Zittau, Görlitz, the places connected with the Moravian Church as well as the spa place Oybin. The student of the Charles University Anna Kejrova accompanied us as a guide and her comment clarified us both past and the present of the Moravian Church in Herrnhut.


Confirmation Ceremony
The confirmation ceremony took place in the time of the Pentecostal-Sunday on 27th May 2007. Pentecostal holy days remember us the birth of the church two thousand years ago. On this confirmation ceremony the new congregation members confirmed their childhood-christening. So in our congregation we welcomed six young congregation members and two other who were christened too. The confirmation ceremony was followed by the Eucharist. Ladislav Moravetz, the whole CCB church cantor, prepared the musical accompaniment. The preaching text to download - document Word-RTF.


1st May in the Czech Paradise
The traditional car trip, on Tuesday 1st May 2007, was prepared by Jan Balcar. For this year's trip he chose the place Strelecka Hurka and the west part of the sand-rock-town Prachovske skaly. As usually there were 40 of us. The footpath led past Parez pond and through the tale Laholi to the hotel Skalni Mesto and to the castle Parez. The weather was, as it had been almost always on 1st May, excellent.


Easter Afternoon
Easter congregation meeting, on Palm Sunday, was prepared, as already a tradition is, by the youth of our congregation. This year's meeting 1th April 2007 opened Pavel Hanych by a bible reflection. The Strasnice trio played Trio F major, op.21 by Karl Stamitz. The Easter theater play was written by Tomáš Najbrt and it was entitled “Easter 33”. The text of this play can be downloaded here in the PDF file.


Music concerts in Strasnice
The encounters with music in Strasnice take place in the second part of January – as it has become a tradition. On Sunday 14th January 2007 was heard the music of A.Corelli, J.K.Vanhal, J.S Bach, G.Fauré a G.F.Händel in the interpretation of B.Waldmannova (viola), M.Waldmannova (violoncello), T.Novakova (singing) and L.Parik (organ). The second concert was a pure organ-concert. P.Rajnoha performed the works of J.S.Bach, L.N.Clérambault, C.Franck, M.Duruflé and J.Klicka. The ensemble „Ensemble Guillaume“ under the art-guidance of L.Vendl and P.Budín (bassoon) prepared the concert on 28th January. We heard the compositions of J.D.Zelenka, J.H.Schein, G.P.Telemann, H.Purcell, F.P.Mensi and J.Pachelbel. Short bible-reflections were heard in the course of each concert.