BST's Blog

I just laughed out loud at the thought of playing Christmas Vacation on Sunday morning--awesome. Maybe a scene from Elf?

The Spirit really put this order together for Sunday. Last week Lee camp talked about the song "Silent Night" and how ironic that thought was. There was nothing silent about what Jesus came to do. Although he was like a lamb led to the slaughter who didn't open his mouth (as Isaiah tells us), in truth, his message was extremely earth shattering, especially for the religious folks among us. Lee said that Jesus seemed to be completely intolerant of anyone who might lord over others. "The first shall be last, the last will be first." We must become as servants! Silent night--yes and no.

We're talking about the gift of Jesus to the world this Sunday. We'll have some readings by members of the choir, we're showing the clip of Linus from "A Charlie Brown Christmas", and we'll consider this notion of "silent night". During communion we'll think about the profundity of this gift. World shattering. Chain breaking. Empowering the weak. Restoration. Hope. Healing. No more "impossible". And the communion thoughts will be centered around "Mary Did You Know". Sheryl and Phil Henry and I will sing that together. Julianne Cox (Clarissa's daughter) and Abby Brown (the daughter of Melanie--one of our children's' ministers) will sing different verses of "Away in a Manger" with the choir ooohing under them. We'll book end the service with the "Hallelujah Chorus" at the beginning and "You Are Holy" at the end. Those lyrics proclaim the names of the Lord so well! I am excited about it. In spite of the horrible weather here we had almost 40 people at choir practice tonight. I was thrilled!

My idea for the morning came two weeks ago when the breakfast with Santa folks decorated the stage in the fellowship hall with huge wrapped presents. Here's the catch--we were going to transport them to the sanctuary as our backdrop...BUT, our janitor, Drew UNWRAPPED them. All of them. Bless. I wanted to kill him. All in Christmas, Christian love of course. All in fun, people. All in fun.

As I write tonight, it is raining ice. I just finished wrapping some gifts and I am on a vacation high knowing that I don't have to work the next few days and Christmas time's a comin! (It was fun to see cast members at choir rehearsal tonight. It felt like a family reunion!)

Thanks for the great ideas today--that Charlie Brown Christmas idea was awesome. I wouldn't have thought of it. Have a wonderful night before the night before Christmas!