Christmas Eve in an Abandoned Church

Minong is a small village about 20 miles northeast Hayward. Several families from that area travel the half hour or so to go to church with us.

Just a few months ago, Faith Nazarene Church (one of only three in the town), closed up. The Catholics and Lutherans are the only ones left now. Minong is like Garrison Keillor's Wobegon, where you're either "Catholic, Lutheran or weird."

But now, Minong had lost their weird church -- and there ought to be at least one weird church in every community!

The empty church sat on the corner -- a symbol of shattered hopes and dreams. (much like the old stump from my previous post.)

We have a small group that meets in Minong. They are one of the best groups in our church -- full of faith, laughter, and deep fellowship. I have met with them a few times, asking the question, "What is God doing in Minong, and how can we join Him?"

Last week, together, we dared to do something crazy -- something deliciously weird!

We held a candlelight Christmas Eve Service in the little abandoned church!

The Nazarenes kindly allowed us to use the building and our small group worked like everything, sprucing up the place for Christmas. They quickly spread the word to their family and friends.

"Come to church with us for Christmas Eve!"

We found some singers to lead a few carols, put together a small children's ensemble, found an excellent violin player, and some guitar players too (one guitar player, a rock & roller named Shawn, is really new to the church scene. He just recently came to Christ through the small group, and had sure never played Christmas carols in church before!)

The piano was tuned on December 23 -- and June, (a Presybertian from the next town over) graciously agreed to tickle the ivories.

I wondered if anybody would show up.

Coming directly from a Christmas Eve service in Hayward, I arrived 20 minutes after the service had begun -- and I could hardly believe my eyes!

The little church was packed full of people! 106 showed up (and we only had 100 chairs!)
Most of these folks were complete strangers to me -- but somehow, on this Christmas Eve, our hearts were knit together as one.

Jeremy, our children's pastor, preached a powerful sermon -- and led the people in a prayer to open their hearts to Jesus.

At the end of the service we collected communication cards from the congregation -- and discovered that a dozen people had marked their cards, saying that they had made a commitment to Christ that night!

I drove home, singing, "Gloria! In Excelsis Deo!"

It will be interesting to see what happens next!