A Whole Lotta Good Worship Opportunities

 Friends, 

Below is a list of the worship opportunities at St. Mark over the fourth weekend of Advent and on Christmas Eve. All of the services, except for the children's program, will be available for livestream on our YouTube Channel and for delayed worship afterwards. You can access our worship services here. 

Saturday at 5:00pm, we will have our Blue Christmas Service. We know that a season filled with joy is also a time of pain for those who cannot be with the ones they love. Rather than denying that pain, we offer this service to embrace the difficult part of this season, whether it is through death, distance, or some manner of estrangement. We will have opportunities to write a letter to the ones whom we miss, gather our letters to remember that we are not alone in our pain, and to have a time of anointing and prayer. It is somber – a feeling that we don’t always associate with the Christmas season – but it is filled with honesty and healing. 

Sunday at 9:30am, we will celebrate the 4th week of Advent. During this Advent season we have been asking, “What Your Sign?” as we look at the symbols of our faith. One of our shared symbols is the Advent Wreath, whose candles we have been lighting after another. This week we light the Candle of Love, as we marvel at how God’s love for us is made known by – the birth of a child. As the angel told the shepherds, “This will be a sign to you, you will find a baby.” What better way is there for us to set our sights on what God is doing in the world than to join the shepherds in going to see this sign of hope? 

Christmas Eve at 4:30pm, we will have our Family Christmas Eve Service. One of our values at St. Mark is inclusivity, and this service is a way of inviting as many children as possible to participate in the storytelling of Christmas. Since the children in attendance on Christmas Eve may be visiting from out of town, we have a pageant made up of some rehearsed parts and lots of impromptu participation, so that all the children in attendance can present, “A Savior’s Birth.” If you have family visiting with you that include little ones, this is the perfect opportunity to bring them and invite them to join in the pageant. 

Christmas Eve at 7:00pm, the St. Mark Chancel Choir will lead us in a Service of Lessons and Carols. The “lessons” will walk us through the Gospel of Luke’s Christmas story, starting with the angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary and concluding with the shepherd’s visit to Jesus. This service will also feature a string quartet, led by our friend Julie Metz, and will conclude with “Passing the Light of Christ” as we sing Silent Night. 

Christmas Eve at 9:00pm, we will circle back to the Symbolic Meaning of the Advent Candles that we have been lighting throughout the season and revisit our themes of “Living in Hope,” “Longing for Peace,” “Singing our Joy,” and “Birthing Love” as they lead us to lighting the Christ Candle. Throughout we will offer reflections by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was always amazed by the world-changing moment when God became human, a child, naked and dependent in this world. This service will conclude with “Passing the Light of Christ” as we sing Silent Night. 

Mark of St. Mark