What a great Christmas it was! A little (well actually a pretty long) recap!
It began with The Christmas Cantata. Immanuel's first attempt at a cantata with a back up cd accompaniment! Wow! Lot's of work, but wonderful results! Thank you chancel choir, Praise Choir and Joyful Noise! Your hard work really showed and was so appreciated! Will we do one again? Why not join us and see...
Children's Sunday School program came next. Great as usual, and a big thank you to Jennie for writing the program and to Janice for handling the music end of things. Janice really impresses me with her ability to get so many of the kids involved, and to get them sounding so good, with so little time! Great job everyone!
Christmas Eve was of course a whirlwind of awesome worship services! Thank you to the Praise Choir for leading us in singing at the 4:30 service, What a great way to start the afternoon. Special thanks to Kevin and Scott for accompanying Silent Night on guitars ( I think there is no better way to play that song!) A very special thanks to 7th grader, Elyse for sharing her "O Holy Night". So beautiful, and especially beautiful when the Joyful Noise children's choir joined in- I'm not sure there was a dry eye in the house! Thank you Joyful Noise!
After 4:30 service I headed over to Sanctuary, for their 7:30 service. Even now as I recall this time of worship I am getting weepy (in a good way!). The atmosphere created by the sacred space team, and all the volunteers and the musicians,and the worshipers... such a peaceful place to greet our newborn Savior. Thank you to the band who pulled practically 3-adays to preprare. I loved working with you, and look forward to doing it again. Thank you to my choir of two-Charlotte and Anne-you were great! Thank you to the sound guys who put up with us musicians, (well, who put up with me anyway). And a very special thank you to the transportation people. Without you...well. we wouldn't know what to do, you are the best!
I wrapped up my Christmas Eve back at Immanuel at the tail end of the 10:00pm service. Thank you to Dean and the chancel choir members for helping with one of the best traditions of the night... the singing of the carols at the end. For those of you not familiar- come next year- okay, let me give you a little hint... At the very end of the service the chancel choir files down the isles and sings along on carol after carol until the last person is ushered out of the church. Many people just stay in the narthex singing along until the very last song. My favorite!
Since Sunday was only 2 days after Christmas, we continued the Christmas celebration by singing carols during worship this past Sunday the 27th- very nice. Especially nice was the musical additions at the 10:00 service by some of our junior high students. Amanda and Alyssa sang the first verse of The First Noel- Great job girls! Ben and Elyse reprised their "Who Could Imagine a King" from the children's Christmas program. Very lovely once again! Thank you all!
Whew!! A whirlwind! But so worth it, as together we worshiped and together we shared the wonderful message of Christmas!
May the joy of Jesus' birth be with you throughout the year!
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