Tomorrow is Christmas Eve... our 3rd as a community. I really have no idea what to expect. It's the weirdest thing- when you have a church where hardly anyone is over 35, it kind of clears out over holidays.
The past two years we have done the late night thing... last year I vowed we wouldn't do it again, especially because this year Christmas Eve is a Sunday. It's just so, so much work, and with so many in our community with small children, we only get a limited number of people out.
But now I kind of regret not having it... tomorrow morning will be cool, and I know that if we had tried to do something late at night as well, I'd be kicking myself- but I'm going to miss our 11pm-12:01am thing where people come in their PJs and we bring in Christmas together.
I suppose there's always next year. :)
Have I mentioned how hard I find preaching at Christmas and Easter? I find them the absolute most difficult of messages to prepare. Something about the fact that everyone
1. Knows the basic story already
2. Will feel cheated if you leave out certain elements
3. Would love you to present it in a new and fresh way.
Man- that's just too much pressure!
All that to say, I'm not sure how confident I feel about tomorrow. There are Sundays when I'm driving down to the Lab, and all I do is pray "God, please do something with this..." I have a feeling tomorrow will be one of those.
I'm looking forward to a week off- and 2 weeks off from preaching. I need to recharge and rethink some of my prep routine. I need to make more room for some creativity, for some different rhythms in communication...
Thanks for reading my blog, everyone. I wish you a very merry Christmas, and a happy New Year!
