You are cordially invited to our Christmas Eve service tonight. It begins at 7. Our children will be with us in the service. Your children are entirely welcome. Your mom and dad, your partner, your brothers and sisters, aunties and uncles, all are welcome.
Beloved,
This will be our third cantata in a row, I believe, with some sort of serious snow threat (and believe me, the snow delivered the last 2 times). Let me tell you something: both times, you turned out in spades. You walked. You carpooled. If it was safe for you, you came, many of you literally preparing the way of the Lord, but also the way of the Dibbie and the Barbara and others by shovelling and salting the walks ahead of time.
Let me tell you something else: if you came, you said later that it felt even more delicious to be at church, because it cost you something to get there. There was a powerful sense of being in on a secret, of creating and protecting something vital: not just sacred space, and sacred song, and lighting candles against the darkness, but the whole that all these things add up to, when you do it in the name of God, in the hope that God will come down and share life with us. Which is exactly what happened, 2009 (or 2013?) years ago, give or take. And will, doubtless, happen again this Sunday.
Tomorrow: Cantata Dress Rehearsal, 4-6pm, finishing touches. The fruit of 2 months of rehearsing, 28 or so adult and child singers, two dozen bell ringers, drummers, brass players, musicians, and readers.
Sunday morning: Cantata! With Christmas folk music from Nigeria, Handel’s Messiah, modern carols that sound medieval, ancient carols that sound as fresh and juicy as a clementine. The Cantata will run the length of worship, about an hour, with time for welcoming, prayers, offering of self and gifts to God. If you have white-tissue-wrapped gifts for the Casa children, you can bring them and let them be blessed during the offering. We will also be collecting these “white gifts” on Christmas Eve.
The nursery will be staffed with TWO paid caregivers so parents of children under 3 can enjoy the worship service in blessed quiet!
After Worship: A fabulous brunch downstairs, with a kitchen crew of thousands. George is making trays and trays of cheese strata (a savory bread pudding), many of you are providing sweets and salads. We’ll sing carols at the top of our lungs, with accompaniment. And if you’ve taken home the name of a church child, at your leisure you can find your child (ask Debbie Duhamel, me or Laura Ruth if you’re not sure how to find your child) to give them the gift book you’ve purchased.
Other things going on during coffee hour:
~Equal Exchange goodies for sale (last Sunday!)
~Casa Christmas ornaments for sale (last Sunday!)–self serve, donation in any amount
~Sign up for your FREE pictorial directory and photo shoot, Jan 8-9-10! on the coffee hour table
I’m sure I’ve forgotten something tremendously important. But the most important thing is that you come, bring people you love with whom you want to share the church that you love. And come expecting Christ to come, too–however big, however small He may look.
blessings
Molly
In the waning light of this season, we Christians take upon ourselves a practice of preparing ourselves for the coming of the Christ, the Divine Light. This practice is done in our hearts and in community. Our congregation will practice in our services. You are invited to join us in this practice. Here is a schedule of our services.
Each Sunday morning at 10 AM.
Each Wednesday evening at 6:30 PM, Rest and Bread, a service of prayer and communion.
Every weekday morning at 7 AM, a service of morning prayers.
Our Christmas Cantata will be on Sunday Morning, December 20 at 10 AM
Christmas Eve Services will be on Thursday, December 24 at 7 PM
Hello Beloved,
We’re nigh on the third Sunday in Advent: how did this happen? How can it be that the baby will come so soon, when we’ve hardly had a chance to get things ready? The house is a mess, and the crib isn’t even put together, and we’re so unprepared, oh, so unready to take care of something as tiny and fragile as…
We’re all pregnant, with something, right now: with possibility, with hope, with something just waiting to burst forth from us in a holy mess (little too graphic, people? well! life is messy). This weekend we’ll give you a chance to eat like a pregnant woman, and think like one.
Tomorrow, Saturday, we’ll gather at John Olson’s home to carol the neighborhood and eat cookies, to unplug the Christmas machine and make space for the indwelling Christ through music and friendship.
Sunday, in worship, I’ll be preaching on the Magnificat: Mother Mary’s sung response to what God was growing inside of her. Sarah G. is our newbie liturgist–she’ll tell us her own poetic response to Mary’s song, reminding us of the difference between waiting and expecting. Laura Ruth will pray with us. Choir sings! After worship: you can go the Welcomer Training at 11:45, rehearse for next week’s Christmas Cantata at 12:30, leave your kids safely with other beloved parents while you take some time to do what you need to do to get ready, and finally, re/Advent yourself in the fourth re/New worship service, this time in the sanctuary, at 7p, a beautiful, beautiful way to worship our God.
Christlove,
Molly
Beloved,
Hard to conceive of the closeness of Christmas, when our music director comes to evening meetings in shorts.
Hard to conceive of the bigness of Advent, when we’re so mired in the humble daily, in scheduling parties and extra rehearsals, making little gifts, getting term papers and projects packed away to make soft space around the holidays for rest. How does one be a human making our way through the day, while simultaneously expecting the coming of Christ–both the first coming, Christmas, not to mention the second coming, the Apocalypse?
Bet most of you didn’t know that Apocalypse was an integral part of Advent worship, did you? It’s a word that strikes fear in our hearts, but it needn’t. It’s short for apokalupsis eschaton from the Greek, meaning “the revelation at the end of the age.” The name itself is neutral: it doesn’t say anything about the end being especially bad, nor anything about it being especially good. All we have to go on to make sense of the Apocalypse, biblically speaking, is slim: a few verses here and there, that charismatic preachers and wingnuts have made much of over the millenia. And what is there, in the Bible, offers more hope and promise than desolation and destruction, depending on the reading.
What do you hope for from the end-times? Can you even imagine it, or is it hard to think past next Thursday?
In keeping with our ‘Savior of the Cosmos and a Tiny Little Baby’ theme for Advent, I’ll be preaching this weekend from Luke 3, and what the Baptist’s words might mean that “…all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” Jeff is our able liturgist, John solos, Laura Ruth prays with us. We’ll take communion together, and we’ll bless our new handbells!
After worship: bell choir rehearsal; Rooftop People (all are welcome!), Compassionate Caregivers, cantata rehearsal, cookie-baking in the kitchen for our elders, or lovely lingering over coffee with friends in our sunny parish hall.
Get the sun on your face today. The darkness is still increasing, until the Light comes to shine in that darkness.
Christlove,
Molly
This post is for all you nostalgic Christmas-and-Easter Christians. Also for you folk who have never set foot in a Christian church, but who are…curious. If you don’t have a church home, but feel the nudge, the lure, the longing of belonging at Christmastime, if Santa’s lap just doesn’t do it for you (creepy!), if you are mall-weary and think there must be more to it all, consider coming to First Church Somerville. We’ll welcome you warmly, and let you choose how lightly to be involved. No pressure—just the beauty of the Christian tradition, art, music, hope and anticipation—with good coffee thrown in.
Here are some events you might be interested in:
Advent Morning Prayers: Advent has been described as a mini-Lent, a time of preparation and waiting. Get more God in your day by starting it every morning in silence, scripture-reading, open-ended and open-minded reflection, with a few other hardy souls, amid Christmas lights and candles in our downstairs chapel. Every weekday, starting November 30, through December 23, 7a.
Christmas Caroling: We’ll carol the neighborhood on Saturday evening, December 12 at 6p, beginning from the warm, welcoming home of a dedicated church member. All are welcome, children especially. Email Rev. Molly at revmolly@yahoo.com for more details.
re/New emergent-style worship: Sunday evening, December 13 at 7p, we’ll gather in our downstairs hall, which will be transformed by comfortable chairs and candlelight, to pour ancient faith into fresh new forms of spiritual expression.
Christmas Cantata for all ages: Sunday, December 20 at 10a. Our rad musical extravaganza: bell choir, children’s choir, adult choir sing Handel et alia. To be followed by raucous carol singing, great brunch and cookies galore at coffee hour afterward.
Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols: Thursday, December 24 at 7p, the odds and ends of humanity will gather in the sanctuary, in semi-darkness, to sing the old songs in a new way, hear the old story made new, and enter in, by voluntary participation in our unrehearsed Christmas pageant. Ending on a high note: Silent Night.
…And, of course, Advent wreath-lighting, carols and more, every Sunday morning at 10a and on Wednesdays’ services of Rest and Bread at 6:30p.
In the waning light of this season, we Christians take upon ourselves a practice of preparing ourselves for the coming of the Christ, the Divine Light. This practice is done in our hearts and in community. Our congregation will practice in our services. You are invited to join us in this practice. Here is a schedule of our services.
Each Sunday morning at 10 AM.
Each Wednesday evening at 6:30 PM, Rest and Bread, a service of prayer and communion.
Every weekday morning at 7 AM, a service of morning prayers.
Our Christmas Cantata will be on Sunday Morning, December 20 at 10 AM
Christmas Eve Services will be on Thursday, December 24 at 7 PM