Christ the Savior is Born!
I have so many great memories of the Christmas season from the churches I served over the years. Here are 7 of my favorite moments!
1) The Christmas Eve Candlelight Service at New Garden Friends Meeting was always highlighted by Marilyn Burris singing O Holy Night. The song still gives me chills because it always makes me think of her beautiful voice.
2) At Springfield Friends Meeting I started a tradition of setting up "bag candles" on Christmas Eve to light the walk ways into the meetinghouse. It was my gift to the people of Springfield each year. The Christmas Eve service always felt like a big family gathering where you got one last chance to say "Merry Christmas" and remind people how much you cared about them.
3) In our early years at Springfield we would leave after the candlelight service and drive to my grandparents home in Asheboro for dinner and a family Christmas party. One year we arrived back in High Point late that night to find that thieves had tried to break into our home, but Max Rees had spotted them and called the police. Our yard was full of flashing lights when we arrived, and it was all kind of scary. It made us very thankful for good friends and good neighbors.
4) I don't remember how it got started, but one of the traditions at Springfield was my wife Marilyn and Karen Chester singing the Amy Grant song Heirlooms each year. Their voices blended so beautifully, and the words are so stirring- "My precious Jesus is more than an heirloom to me."
5) Once I arrived at First United Methodist Church-Kissimmee I discovered that Christmas Eve was as much of a marathon as it was a celebration! We would start in the late afternoon and do four services, ending around midnight. The services were often all different, and they were most always very crowded. To celebrate with so many people was a real joy, and staff members like Pastor John Willis and Andrew Lewis kept it all quite festive and creative. Other staff members (and church members) would bring food for us, so we would have small meals in the conference room after every service. Then I would go home and eat my share of our family's traditional Christmas Eve hot dogs!
6) Another tradition that began while we were in Kissimmee was attending the EPCOT Christmas Candlelight Processional. For the uninitiated, this event runs from Thanksgiving through Christmas with three "shows" each evening. A 400 voice choir, a full orchestra and a celebrity narrator (Marilyn and Will saw Neil Partick Harris last year!) who reads directly from scripture tell the story of the birth of Jesus in a most inspiring way. It is an overtly Christian celebration at Walt Disney World! Who knew?
7) We had multiple service as Wesley Memorial UMC-Tampa as well, but the year I remember most was the year it rained so much parts of the building and the entire parking lot was flooded- yet the people still came! It reminded me that those of us who follow Jesus make such small sacrifices compared to the sacrifice Jesus would make for us.
I made it through 7 Things without mentioning the time at the youth group Christmas party in Kissimmee when I received a Brittney Spears doll and Amber Herrick got a leopard skin thong- well, I almost made it anyway! I hope that your Christmas season is full of great memories and great stories- and that we never forget the story of the gift of Jesus!
Because of Jesus,
Yes, Tammy. That is the word I was searching for! :)
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