Saturday, December 06, 2008

'Tis the Season

This Wednesday was one of those awesome nights at church that, unfortunately, seems to only come around the holidays.  Have you ever experienced one of those "perfect" church moments?  One of those times where it seems like everything is running exactly the way the church should be?  Let me give you my example.

This week, we have had the privilege of housing the homeless at my church in Portsmouth.  It is this awesome program that the Portsmouth churches run where, every fall/winter, all of the churches in the city take turns housing the homeless for a week.  All of the churches seem to get involved, because, even if the homeless aren't actually at their church, they help with one of the other churches.  In these recent years, we have had the pleasure of serving with St. Andrews United Methodist Church.  But this program is perhaps one of my greatest memories so far of working at my church.

So this is obviously the biggest thing I enjoy of this time of year, but Wednesday night was bigger.  I was exhausted.  I had stayed the entire night two of the three days before it (when you stay all night, you don't sleep...) and I was fairly tired.  So I couldn't help for long on Wednesday night.  But, to my surprise, after I had told my youth group the prior week that we were doing this, and so they didn't have to come for our regular service, ALL of them came to serve the homeless brothers and sisters dinner on that night.  Instead of the regular 10-12 helpers we have had through the rest of the week, we had about 35-40 helpers in the form of children and teens.  It was an absolutely beautiful display of willing Christian service.

So as I was leaving, treasuring these two things in my heart, I was walking away from the building to my car and I could see the Christmas lights in the choir room and hear the choir practicing their Christmas carols.  Isn't it awesome how quickly Christmas music can lighten your heart?  Everything that should have been happening in the church was--service, willing unity of workers from all ages, and praise and thanksgiving being offered to God--and it was a beautiful memory.
But as I said, this kind of thing seems to happen more often on Christmas than any other time.  And I don't want to be a pessimist and say that, if that's the case, then 
the church has a problem.  Because I think the church already knows that.  I think we have recognized the fact that we have gotten away from who we truly are to be in a world that is so longing for love.  I look forward to the day when these sort of Christmas memories will be made all year long.

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