Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Odd socks...

So what to do with the long Christmas vacation in Cambridge? Start writing essays? Catch up with reading? Put your feet up? All superb ideas, and maybe options I should have opted for... however, I didn't and now I seem to be continually wearing odd socks!

I decided that it would be good to experience ministry during the big Christian festivals this year. So with agreement from the Minister who supervised me over the summer and my College Tutor, I am now back on placement. It was a fantastic idea at the beginning of term, but maybe not anymore!

You would think that Christmas was easy, the story's the same every year and so are the carols. The Sunday School will have to do a Nativity and people won't feel they have had Christmas without Nine Lessons and Carols. Then you have the Luncheon Club's Christmas Lunch, the Women's Fellowship Christmas Tea and all the others. It is the season of no sermon writing and mince pie eating!

If only...

You may have three carol services on one day, but they all have to be slightly different, because you can't use that carol in one church and someone is singing a solo in another and in the other you can only find eight readers! There is the Christmas Eve and the Christmas Day addresses, which have to be short but pack a punch as this may be the only chance you get to share the message with some people till next Christmas. Then after all the lunches and teas, there are all the folk you need to visit before Christmas. Your days start early and finish very late. You loose the ability to find matching socks.

It sounds like Christmas really is a chore for a Minister of Word and Sacrament, but from what I have experienced in the past ten days, that is far from the truth. It's hard work, but it is also a huge privilege. To be able to take Communion to someone who is house-bound with Christmas greetings from the Church. To be able to share the good news of Christmas with people who may have just come to hear the carols. To do what God has called me to do is no chore but a blessing, even if it means I end up wearing odd socks.