What a Christmas Eve!
In our four Christmas Eve services at Hayward, a total of 1024 people attended. It was a delight to greet many old friends. Some, I've not seen since Easter.
We had a sailor from Virginia Beach, a lady who had been stuck in the Denver airport for 57 hours, and several friends from the community who have been on my prayer list. There was a beautiful spirit in all the services as we lit the candles and sang "Silent Night" together.
A fun highlight of the day was driving the thirty miles up to Drummond between the Hayward services.
My Episcopal buddy, Art Hancock, the Youth for Christ guy, Dave Johnson and I opened up the empty Lutheran church and held a non-denominational Christmas Eve service. It's hard for me to imagine a town in America that doesn't have a single church -- but that's the case with Drummond.
Art covered the "closed" sign out front with a Christmas banner.
Fifteen minutes before the service began, I wondered if anybody was going to show up, but my concerns were definitely unfounded.
A stream of beaming strangers poured into the little, musty church on the corner. There have been no worship services there for months, and the "I need to be opened up" smell lingers in the air. Yet there was an "air of puzzlement mixed with expectancy."
One person counted 90 attendees, who sat in the mahogany pews and folding chairs.
We lost our piano player -- and so I substituted with guitar. It seemed to fit the situation just fine. One 20-something guy in the second pew exclaimed, "Cool! I've never seen guitars in church before!"
There were several families with little kids!
Cathy helped me by leading the singing, She and Hannah also joined with the Jackson's in a Christmas violin quartet.
Suzanne, the village librarian, read Scripture, a wonderful young couple from the town, provided some music, Father Art told the Christmas story, and Dave led the candlelighting.
We didn't take an offering. The service was a free gift to their community.
My friends, Horst and Elisabeth, came early from Hayward, just to help out -- so they became our "official" candle distributors. Horst smiled and said, "Last Sunday, I was at Willow Creek. This experience is just a little bit different!"
Horst was right. It was much more like Lake Wobegon than Willow Creek, and that was perfectly fine with the good northwoods folks of Drummond. They had a meaningful Christmas Eve, and a darkened church was lit up again. I sure felt good driving home.
Joy to the World, the Lord has Come!
Somebody asked me how we advertised.
I said, "I just whispered it to a couple of people and said, 'please don't tell anybody'."
We had a sailor from Virginia Beach, a lady who had been stuck in the Denver airport for 57 hours, and several friends from the community who have been on my prayer list. There was a beautiful spirit in all the services as we lit the candles and sang "Silent Night" together.
A fun highlight of the day was driving the thirty miles up to Drummond between the Hayward services.
My Episcopal buddy, Art Hancock, the Youth for Christ guy, Dave Johnson and I opened up the empty Lutheran church and held a non-denominational Christmas Eve service. It's hard for me to imagine a town in America that doesn't have a single church -- but that's the case with Drummond.
Art covered the "closed" sign out front with a Christmas banner.
Fifteen minutes before the service began, I wondered if anybody was going to show up, but my concerns were definitely unfounded.
A stream of beaming strangers poured into the little, musty church on the corner. There have been no worship services there for months, and the "I need to be opened up" smell lingers in the air. Yet there was an "air of puzzlement mixed with expectancy."
One person counted 90 attendees, who sat in the mahogany pews and folding chairs.
We lost our piano player -- and so I substituted with guitar. It seemed to fit the situation just fine. One 20-something guy in the second pew exclaimed, "Cool! I've never seen guitars in church before!"
There were several families with little kids!
Cathy helped me by leading the singing, She and Hannah also joined with the Jackson's in a Christmas violin quartet.
Suzanne, the village librarian, read Scripture, a wonderful young couple from the town, provided some music, Father Art told the Christmas story, and Dave led the candlelighting.
We didn't take an offering. The service was a free gift to their community.
My friends, Horst and Elisabeth, came early from Hayward, just to help out -- so they became our "official" candle distributors. Horst smiled and said, "Last Sunday, I was at Willow Creek. This experience is just a little bit different!"
Horst was right. It was much more like Lake Wobegon than Willow Creek, and that was perfectly fine with the good northwoods folks of Drummond. They had a meaningful Christmas Eve, and a darkened church was lit up again. I sure felt good driving home.
Joy to the World, the Lord has Come!
Somebody asked me how we advertised.
I said, "I just whispered it to a couple of people and said, 'please don't tell anybody'."
God is awesome. Thanks for your Christmas eve story. Christmas blessings on you and your family today
ReplyDeleteWay to go. My organist got the flu and I did ours with a guitar also. 7 carols definately stressed me but it was good. We had about 25. First Christmas Eve service there in years also. God is good. Merry Christmas to everybody: Steve
ReplyDeleteWish I could have been there too Mark! I think about what the next step might be there. Living in Cable for five years, I've felt a burden for this area and I'm so glad that Art and you made this possible.
ReplyDeleteOur Christmas eve service featured guitar only as well. For many years they didn't have a Christmas eve service. We did a Lessons and Carols service. Someone would read a scripture and then we would sing a carol that was connected to that scripture.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad you were able to open the doors of that church. I pray that more opportunities will arise for you to continue open up those doors! And...how exciting is the coming together of denominations in unity! Thanks for sharing with us!
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