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.
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Thursday, November 15, 2012
The waiting time is almost upon us...
So week 7 started today... WEEK 7... just two weeks and term is finished and Advent is here!
Ooooh... Advent... Christmas...
Now I know Christmas seems to get earlier and earlier every year in the shops, but it also arrives very quickly when you study at a University that has very short terms. I have this term joined a choir (yipee, at last I am no longer just singing in the bath), and what do you have to do at the end of Michaelmas term? Well sing carols at a concert or in the streets of Cambridge (or both). And because I have starting singing Christmas carols, I thought that gave me a good enough reason for starting to practice Christmas carols on the trumpet as well. Ok, most probably won't be playing in public this year, but you never know, so it is worth being prepared!
This of course means if I start looking at Christmas carols, I also have to look at Advent carols (usually same chapter in the hymnbook anyway). After all Advent does come before Christmas: a point that sometimes gets forgotten. And as I have to lead worship over Advent, no bad thing getting the tunes into my head now. I do, however, have a favourite Advent carol: 'O come, o come Emmanuel'. Someone in my preaching class the other day did suggest a set of themes to cover the season of Advent which would allow the use of 'O come, o come Emmanuel' on every Advent Sunday! My first pastorate, beware, we will be doing this and I will be playing the trumpet! (Why not, I'll be the minister... I can do what I want... can't I?)
So Advent, that waiting place, that time to prepare and to look forward. A time we sometimes miss because we're too busy with Christmas. Well, this year, things are going to be different. I may be singing Christmas carols in November and going to Christmas dinners in early December, but this year I'm not going to forget Advent and the place of limbo it puts us in and the longing for Christ's coming (again).
Therefore, theme tune for 1st to 24th December: "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel"
Ooooh... Advent... Christmas...
Now I know Christmas seems to get earlier and earlier every year in the shops, but it also arrives very quickly when you study at a University that has very short terms. I have this term joined a choir (yipee, at last I am no longer just singing in the bath), and what do you have to do at the end of Michaelmas term? Well sing carols at a concert or in the streets of Cambridge (or both). And because I have starting singing Christmas carols, I thought that gave me a good enough reason for starting to practice Christmas carols on the trumpet as well. Ok, most probably won't be playing in public this year, but you never know, so it is worth being prepared!
This of course means if I start looking at Christmas carols, I also have to look at Advent carols (usually same chapter in the hymnbook anyway). After all Advent does come before Christmas: a point that sometimes gets forgotten. And as I have to lead worship over Advent, no bad thing getting the tunes into my head now. I do, however, have a favourite Advent carol: 'O come, o come Emmanuel'. Someone in my preaching class the other day did suggest a set of themes to cover the season of Advent which would allow the use of 'O come, o come Emmanuel' on every Advent Sunday! My first pastorate, beware, we will be doing this and I will be playing the trumpet! (Why not, I'll be the minister... I can do what I want... can't I?)
So Advent, that waiting place, that time to prepare and to look forward. A time we sometimes miss because we're too busy with Christmas. Well, this year, things are going to be different. I may be singing Christmas carols in November and going to Christmas dinners in early December, but this year I'm not going to forget Advent and the place of limbo it puts us in and the longing for Christ's coming (again).
Therefore, theme tune for 1st to 24th December: "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)