This Sunday, Dec. 9th, is the second Sunday of the Season of Advent, and our Church will be celebrating worship at the 9:15 and 10:45 AM traditional services with a cantata called Ceremony of Candles by Joseph M. Martin. Rev. David Dalke will be giving a short message in these services, and all promises to be glorious as we continue our Advent journeys together. Scott Finlay, our Music Director, and our choir have been hard at work on this piece, and Scott has recruited an orchestra to accompany the choir in this presentation. It is a not-to-be-missed event, to be sure! I hope you'll take the time to be with us at one of these hours of worship.
The 8:00 AM service will also be different from what it usually is. Instead of the typical traditional worship service we hold at that hour, we will be participating in a simple, contemplative service of morning prayer based on the book we've been using all week for that purpose in the Chapel, Christmastide: Prayers for Advent through Epiphany from The Divine Hours, by Phyllis Tickle. Phyllis Tickle is a widely respected Protestant writer and commentator and spiritual guide whose works have found broad acceptance in ecumenical Christian circles. I used her The Divine Hours trilogy for a couple of years in my devotional life and found myself establishing a rhythm of prayer that continues to ground my walk with God in Christ. The 8:00 AM service tomorrow is intended to be a prayerful start to the day with the hope that you will continue in worship at one of the cantata services or the 10:45 AM CrossWalk service.
Speaking of CrossWalk, I am excited to be preaching at that service tomorrow with a sermon entitled, "Love Expressing Itself as Trust". Oftentimes, we equate "faith" with believing certain propositional statements about God or humanity, what Marcus Borg calls "giving mental assent" to a set of doctrines, creeds, or propositions. What Mary and Joseph did in response to the Angel of the Lord that came to them and asked them to participate in an outrageous plan to offer salvation to the world was no "mental assent". It was love for God expressed as radical trust. We'll be exploring that tomorrow at CrossWalk, punctuating the message, as it were, with a song that I'll be singing with Sarah Lillie called "The Song of Mary and Joseph". This piece is from a cantata I directed many years ago now called Christmas Seekers. It will be a blessing and a privilege to do this with Sarah tomorrow. If you miss it, not to worry; we'll be doing it again next Sunday, 12/16, at all three traditional services.
God's blessings to you as you prepare for worship tomorrow.
Pastor Steve
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This service was AWESOME!
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