Merry Christmas and thoughts on Christmas Eve Services

We had a little bit of the Christmas Eve marathon with going to E. 39th Street Community of Christ for a Christmas Eve communion service. We ran into a dear friend, Rich, and got to wish him "Merry Christmas!" The weather was wet and cold. I followed my intuition and decided to get the gas tank filled and be a little late for the service because if the weather did what was predicted (snow, winter storm warnings) then I did not want to try to stop as the weather got progressively worse. There was a good and gentle Spirit with sharing in this sacred covenant/sacrament and recognize that the babe in the manger became the Lord and God initiating the Communion of Bread (Body) and Wine (Blood).

As sleet blanketed the cars and area, we then decided to head over to Stone Church for their Christmas Eve service, we got there before 6 so we hung out in the foyer after calling my G & G's (Grandma and Grandpa's) to wish everyone Merry Christmas! It was wonderful service though sparsely attended (maybe 1/3 normal) with the inclement weather. Paulette and company did a fantastic job. The sanctuary was just beautifully decorated. I think my favorite part was the Men's Ensemble singing, "Mary Did You Know?"--what wonderful harmony and vocals! We just loved this beautiful experience with a great message on "light" in Scripture and message on Christmas gift of our presence with them.

Our next stop and service was at Cornerstone with the young adults doing a production entitled, "Christmas Re-Imagined" with the story of a young man visiting his father in the hospital on Christmas and re-telling or sharing the story of "Christmas Re-imagined" with modern music and sharing of Mary and Joseph as college students and then young newlyweds giving birth in a laundry room of a hotel. I did not think something could easily top Stone Church and communion, but they did. Prior to this, we had a great time shooting the breeze (hearing funny stories) with our friend, Don and later Steve. By the time this production was over, the weather had gotten even worse with the outside looking like a giant snowglobe. We made it home ok to some wonderful hot cocoa and food.

I got up early this morning to see how things looked...It did not look like the roads had been plowed, and we found out the Temple parking lot was not plowed so we had to cancel the Christmas Day Prayer for Peace service and do it at home.

Now to my thoughts on this Christmas Eve marathon, the things that stick out...
1) E. 39th--Communion
2) Stone Church--beautiful music and presence
3) Cornerstone--young adults and their gifts

If you take Communion with God, Beautiful music praising God and focusing on His Presence plus add in Young Adults with their God-given giftedness, you have a pretty good simple definition for IHOP-KC (International House of Prayer).

Now if you add what would have been represented by the Temple, Christ, and Prayer with the Daily Prayer for Peace only make it 24/7/365 then in my humble opinion, you have a RECIPE FOR ENDOWMENT!

My prayer is that the Spirit (Ruach in OT, Pneuma in NT) will break through our walls and barriers in the same way that the wind and snow has gotten in windows and doors to this old house. Just some post-Christmas Eve thoughts on Christmas Day! Merry (mighty and endowed) Christmas and God, peace, blessings, and endowment be with you the rest of this year and in 2010!