Merry Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas Friends in Christ,

While all of our traditions are disrupted by the pandemic, it does not keep us from joining the spiritual invitation to have a Merry Christmas. The videos in this email have been thoughtfully prepared to include many people in our parish, some of our traditions, and a lot of laughs. For tonight we celebrate the mystery of the Incarnation.

I invite you to make an intentional space your day to allow God to speak to you of the meaning and power of Christmas. The pageant video is about 20minutes and fun. The Christmas Eve Worship Video is about 45 minutes at a slower reflective pace with beautiful music. I pray that even though you are watching a screen, still you can enter a spiritual experience where you can hear God speak and join in prayer with our community of faith.

I must say thank you to so many people that made these two videos come together. Thank you to Cindy Lund who organized our pageant this year, wrangling our families to video the scenes in our virtual pageant. Thank you to all the cast of the pageant who went over the top to bring creative scenes made in their home studios. Thank you to Josh Langhoff who, with musicians, choir members and Ana Balmer, put together the beautiful music of the season. Making music this way is a huge challenge and a bit unnerving to sing alone in a microphone. Thank you to Caryl Medsker for preparing and sending out the videos. Thank you to readers and intercessors. And thank you to Jimmy Alcorn, a member of our parish who just graduated from film school. He edited all this footage and integrated our many suggestions and got it all done on time.

Now, let our spiritual worship begin. May joy fill you this night for God chose to become human to show us the way to salvation

With you on the journey,
Lisa+