Yesterday was the kind of Sunday where I found myself wishing that I was already ordained, that I could stay at Faith Lutheran Church to be their pastor. Of course, being their permanent pastor might change things, and it's important to remember that. If they called me as their full-time pastor, I would need to move. I would be held to different standards.
It doesn't really matter. I am not ordained, and ordination is realistically years away. But let me delight in the ways that yesterday was wonderful:
--Last year, Christmas Eve fell on the 4th Sunday of Advent, so we didn't do a morning service. We did a 2 p.m. Christmas Eve service. I was happy to have the 4th Sunday in Advent to luxuriate in the season a bit longer.
--I loved the music yesterday: a chance to sing both "Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel" and "Soon and Very Soon."
--I felt like both my children's sermon and adult sermon went well. What a treat to focus my message on Elizabeth and Mary and their babies in their wombs.
--We got home to find out that our tech person had figured out a way to record the sermon and posted it to the church's Facebook page. I can't figure out a way to download it to my YouTube channel, but if you're on Facebook, you can view it here.
--I finally did figure out how to post it to my YouTube channel! It's here. And of course, if you'd prefer to read my sermon, I turned it into a blog post.
--We had more children in church yesterday: 2 toddlers home to visit Grandma and Great Grandma. They were interested in everything we did, including communion. Delightful!
--One of our members got a Christmas present for everyone, so we stayed seated after worship so that the older youth could assist in handing out Christmas gift bags.
--Then we all did the final decorating for Christmas, which involved tall metal candleholders attached to every other pew and gold ribbons around them.
--On our way out of town, we took communion to a parishioner who is too unsteady to make it to church. We will likely start doing this every Sunday. I was really happy to be able to do this.
I even discovered that the church had a kit stashed away in the sacristy, so transporting the wine was easier than I thought it might be.
--The drive across the mountains was so beautiful, with parts of the mountains frosted with snow. In some spots, it reminded me of that flocking snow that people used to spray on indoor Christmas trees.
--We finished by watching Civil War, not a Christmas movie, and not as compelling as I thought it would be. But it did make me think about what would happen if one paired it with Salvador, two movies about photojournalists. I am not likely to have a class where I would have time to do that, but let me record it.
--It was an early night to bed--a good day can leave one worn out that way.
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