Eden Prairie United Methodist Church
Connect with Us!
  • Home
  • Being Church
    • Crops For PROP
    • Serving Our Neighbors
    • Fellowship >
      • Women's Retreat
  • Children | Youth
    • Nursery
    • Sunday School (Preschool through 7th grade)
    • Especially for Families
    • Rooted (3rd - 4th grade)
    • Vacation Bible School
    • Middle School Youth (Grades 7-8)
    • Confirmation (8th-9th grade)
    • Higher Ground (10th-12th grade)
  • Music
    • Adult Music Opportunities
  • About EPUMC
    • Worship
    • Staff
    • Notes from Pastor Becky Jo
    • Lay Leadership
    • A Reconciling Congregation
    • Tumbleweed Newsletters
    • Videos
    • Annual Report
    • Calendar
  • Prayer
  • Online Giving
  • Contact Us

Pastor dan's weekly memo - December 18, 2014

12/18/2014

Comments

 
Picture
The weather people tell us that in order for Christmas to be white there needs to be at least one inch of snow on the ground.   The weather people also say that something like 75% of our Christmases are white, but that this year we are at a risk of having…well I don’t know what to call it.  Is it a “non-white Christmas?”  Is it a “brown Christmas?”   Last week when it was raining I saw several places that would have to call it a “green Christmas.”

Whatever you call it… Christmas without snow to a lot of us who have spent all or most of our lives in the Snow Belt just doesn’t seem right. So now I’m wondering what are some of the other things that like a white Christmas, we have our hearts set on.  There is Christmas music of many different varieties.  I mean who doesn’t listen to Nat King Cole and Burl Ives at Christmas.  For one thing you can’t help it… walk into any mall and it’s been on since Halloween.  Or what about the real Christmas Tree verses the artificial Christmas Tree.  Our young adult children who have different traditions about everything else in life, think we have given up on Christmas because a couple of years ago, with both of them living elsewhere we put up an artificial tree.

Whatever else you need to feel right about Christmas I hope that on the top of your list is going to church on Christmas Eve.  Our services are at 4:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m.  Our four o’clock service will have our children reenacting the Christmas story.  We’ll have small props for them to wear and come forward at the right time depending on if they are an angel, a star or a shepherd.   At the ten o’clock service we’re a bit more formal with the Chancel Choir singing and Holy Communion.  At both services we will do something that makes Christmas for a lot of us.  After hearing the Christmas story we’ll sing “Silent Night,” turn down the lights and light individual candles. 

There is something about candlelight that makes Christmas for most of us. Perhaps it is the softness of the light in an often-harsh world that moves us.  From my viewpoint up in front, it is the glow that our separate candles combine to create.  I can also see individual faces in that common light.  And what gets to me in those moments, in the glow of that light, is how it is that God came to be one of us, for each of us and for all of us. 

Each of us needs something a little different for Christmas to become real for us.  God knows this.  And into each of our lives, to each one of our needs God sends God’s-self.  “Christ the Savior is Born…” is how we say this when we hold our candles and sing.  And perhaps it is in the soft light of candles and the almost breathless repeating of that phrase on Christmas Eve that we begin to believe it.

Have a Blessed Christmas…

Pastor Dan

Comments

    Archives

    April 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2012

    RSS Feed

Connect with us!
office@prairiechurch.org
(952) 937-8781

15050 Scenic Heights Road
Eden Prairie, MN 55344
Picture
Picture