MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
This will be the last weekly contact before the 25th and the last one of the year. So I wish you a very blessed Christmas spent with those you love and may 2014 be a good year for us all.
We had a wonderful Christmas Program last Sunday evening and I want to thank anyone who had a part of it. I posted a video on the church’s FaceBook page of the Mostly Youth Praise Band swinging away on a familiar carol. If you would like to see it, you can click here.
Let me bring you up to date on what is happening here at First Presbyterian over the next week or so. This Sunday, at both services, the Chancel Choir will present their Christmas cantata. It is entitled “Appalachian Winter” by Joseph M. Martin, and it is lovely. The Chancel Bells will be playing at the first service, and the second service will be slightly abridged in terms of some of the liturgy. Both otherwise both services will be very similar.
On Christmas Eve, we will be having our usual services. A family service will be at 5:00. The Kanz family will provide special music and Pastor Beth will be telling a beautiful story of “The Birds of Bethlehem. There will be a communion service at 7:00. Annitta Parrish will be singing a solo, and Karen Pierce will be playing her hammer dulcimer. Of course we end by dimming the lights and singing “Silent Night.”
The church office will be closed on Christmas day, of course, and the next day as well.
On Sunday, the 29th, there will be one worship service at 9:00. We will be having a carol sing as part of the service. If you haven’t been able to sing your favorite Christmas carol, this will be your chance. I will be preaching on portions of Matthew 1 & 2 and my sermon title is “Dreams and Schemes.”
Here are some closing Christmas thoughts: Christmas is when shivers down the spine have nothing to do with the temperature. Christmas is when songs are not sung with the lips, but with the heart. Christmas is when light does not come from anything electric, but from heaven itself.
Stay in One Heavenly Peace!
Howard