Ready or Not!

We have all consumed our Thanksgiving turkeys and the last vestiges of the leftovers showed up as amazing soups and salads at the last Wednesday night dinner in November, so it must be time to join the retail stores and television advertisements and turn our attention to getting things ready for Christmas.  It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas everywhere I look around LPC.  Let me remind you of the details of some of the activities that we have planned….. 

The mission committee worked diligently to set up the Advent Faire in the Fellowship Hall—offering you an opportunity to honor your family and friends with a gift that will make a difference in our world and will not need to be returned or exchanged.  It will be ready for your shopping convenience on December 2 and 9 after both services. Come by and take a look at all the possibilities.    

Time is already running out for the Community Holiday Coalition tree that has been up in the Fellowship Hall, waiting for you to remove its decorations and buy something for a child that may not get any other gifts this Christmas.  Take the tag, buy a gift for a child described on the tag—ask some of the teenagers to help you with ideas for the older children.  Please put the unwrapped gifts back under the tree by December 9^th, so there will be time for that organization to make sure there is a gift for every child on their list. 

We’ve assembled the Advent wreath in the sanctuary and started lighting the candles.  We thank Jan Lickey and her mother, Helen Alberts again for their annual contribution to our Advent worship.  The worship committee will be hanging the rest of the decorations on Friday, December 14^th.  Jane Ashbaugh, Laura Jackson, and LaVonne Christiansen are in charge of the decorations this year.  Please call them and ask what you can do to help.  Please show up on December 14^th with your yard clippers in hand and any greens that you have to contribute.  It was probably not the best idea to advertise that they needed “some men for hanging,” but they do need some folks who are willing to climb the ladders and hang the big wreaths!  Don’t forget to order your poinsettias—the form was in the mailed newsletter and in the bulletin—we need those dedications by December 9.     

The Worship Committee tucked some Advent reading guides inside the Sunday bulletins—hoping to spur you into developing the habit of daily bible reading—of making our scriptures a part of your life every day, if only in tiny snippets.  Just a moment every morning will help to put those Advent themes into your consciousness for the whole day.  There are some copies on the cabinet in the narthex if you didn’t get one.   

And the Christian Education Committee assembled Advent bags for each family with a wreath of your own to make and some activities for you and your family to do together so that Santa doesn’t overwhelm your preparations for Christmas.  I hope your family took one of the bags from the stage in the Fellowship Hall, and you are lighting your own Advent wreaths week by week at home.

Our Annual Christmas Dinner will be held on December 16^th.  There will be dinner seatings at 5:00 and at 7:30, with the children’s Christmas pageant, “A Snapshot of Christmas,” at 6:15.  We invite you to email a Christmas picture of your family to the church office to be included in the video montage that will be a part of the program—do it today!   We thank Wendy Bourloukas for directing this special event for us this year, and the Deacons for arranging the dinner.  PLEASE make a reservation today for the dinner, so they know how many to expect.  The traditional special guest will make his appearance at the 5:00 seating only.

On Christmas Eve, Monday, December 24, we will worship three times.  At 5:00 we will have our Family Service—designed to include every child in a “no-rehearsal, everyone participate” Christmas pageant with lots of favorite Christmas carols to sing.  At 7:30 and 11:00, we will have a more formal Christmas Candlelight Communion Service.  The late services will be identical except that we will serve communion in the pews at 7:30 and by intinction at 11:00.  There will be child care for the 7:30 service.

As all these festivities are swirling around us in the Advent season, the session is still trying to balance an ever-increasing budget for 2008.  We will have significant extra expenses this year as the Pastor Nominating Committee considers its final candidates, brings those candidates to Leesburg to get better acquainted with them, and then incurs the expense of moving your new pastor to town.  In the last few weeks we have received several smaller pledges, for which I am especially grateful, because it means that those of you who do not have much to share are willing to do your part to help us reach our goals.  Thank you very much for your generosity.  We have also received some significant gifts that we had not expected.  Thank you very much for your generosity.  There are still pledge cards on the cabinet in the narthex.  Ask an usher to help you find one and you may place it in the offering plate on Sunday or mail it into the church office in the attached envelope.  It’s important that everyone in the congregation is willing to invest in our mission and ministry for the future.

Christmas will be here again this year, ready or not.  I invite you to walk slowly through this Advent season, savoring the waiting and the anticipation that must go before our celebration of the birth of the infant Jesus.  Don’t add the stress of being ready to the season—God always comes to us before we are ready.  Emmanuel is always waiting for us, as we are waiting for him. 

Grace and Peace to you all,

                                                                     - Diane