Lighting Up

Christmas is coming, no doubt about that. The shops are filling up with toys that bleep and flash and images of Winter are everywhere. Advent has not yet begun and already planning has started for the Christmas Eve Crib service. This is a special service that we lay on every year especially for families with young children. The key theme of the service is to tell the story of the nativity. If you're not familiar with this story you can find it in any Bible in the New Testament section in the Book of Luke, chapter 2.
As part of the service we fill a display crib scene with figurines. This display actually changes as Christmas passes to Epiphany and stays in the church until Candlemas is February. It's a sort of visual memory device.
We try to put on a very visual and interactive service that is both fun and different. This year we are hosting a kid's club on the day before just to make life interesting. Our thinking is to replicate elements of the kid's club in the crib service. Our plan is to teach the nativity in a way that will provide for the people who are looking for a traditional Christmas but also in a way that will stick in the mind. For many Christmas will have ended as soon as the presents are opened this is far from true.
So the plan is Census, Caesar decreed a census and so a census will take place both at the kids club and also at the service. We're talking Roman soldiers, innkeepers and everyone having a card to be stamped. At both events a couple will arrive late and struggle to get lodging. They will have come far and be tired, one will be heavily pregnant. They will be pushed to a poor animal shelter where a baby will be born. Angels will come singing and shepherds will come looking, clutching a lamb.
Our other motive is to raise funds for the Children's Society by handing out Christingles. The word Christingle means Christ Light and many Crib services are associated with Christingles as Jesus is symbolically regarded as a light in spiritual darkness. Check out the Children's Society Christngle website. Christmas hasn't started, but the planning has !

Peace Dave.