Friends,
There are many things happening this week, next week, and throughout the foreseeable future. It is hard to keep up and can be difficult to make time for everything, even things that we want to be a part of. Let’s give each other the gifts of grace and understanding if we cannot manage to do it all, and let’s begin by offering that grace to ourselves. It helps to remember that nothing we do will make Christmas happen, and nothing that we don’t get done will ruin Christmas, because the good news of great joy is that Christ has come. We don’t make Christmas; we celebrate it as a gift beyond anything we could do.
So, with grace abounding, let’s try to keep an overview of the season around us.
1. Circling back, we are able to update the total of what we raised during the Alternative Christmas Market to north of $31,000. That is an astounding outcome for an event that was joyous in and of itself.
2. Last weekend we began our Advent season surrounded by the beautiful installation from our Worship Commission, Christmas Eve Flowers that many of you are purchasing in honor or memory of someone, and with liturgy that we have purchased from our friends at “A Sanctified Art.”
3. Tomorrow, we have our Blue Christmas service, with opportunities to light a candle in memory of someone whom we miss during this season, receive anointing and prayer for ourselves, and share the bread and wine of communion together. Also on Saturday, following worship, the Youth and Tweens will have a Christmas party in the Fellowship Hall.
4. On Sunday our children will present an original Christmas pageant that Laura Mulchay and I wrote. It’s been the usual madness of trying to find rehearsal times amid holiday seasons, but you will be happy with this presentation of the Christmas story, and you will have an opportunity to be engaged in it personally.
5. Next weekend, December 13th/14th, will have two special features, in addition to our ongoing Advent theme. On Saturday, following worship, we will have a “Synerjazz Christmas Party” in the Fellowship Hall. We have A LOT OF LASAGNE coming, so be sure to contact the church office and sign up to come. Then, on Sunday, our Handbell Ensemble will be performing, which is always a treat for us listeners and a lot of hard work for those ringers.
6. December is when we collect the “Christmas Joy Offering,” one of the annual offerings that we gather on behalf of the Presbyterian Church USA. 50% of this offering helps smooth the path for current and retired church workers and their families in their time of need. The other half prepare students to learn and grow in faith at Presbyterian-related schools and colleges equipping communities of color.
7. And I hope you are planning to be part of our Christmas Eve services. We will have an interactive Family Service at 4:30pm, a Lessons and Carols service featuring our choir and a string quartet at 7:00pm, and a service led by Synerjazz at 9:00pm. Each service will feature sharing the light of the Christ Candle with one another.
Add this all together, we are living into our Advent theme of “insisting on hope” even in times of fear.
I’ll see you in worship,
Mark of St. Mark
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