Merry Christmas

Mom has to work the day before, the day of and the day after Christmas so this year promises to be an interesting one. Tomorrow Dad and I are busing out to church for the Christmas Eve service at 4:30. Mom's picking us up from there after service then we all go back to her place for a dinner of chicken wings, seasoned rice and potatoes. The morning of the actual day, since Mom has to work, the rest of us only get to dive into our stockings. Mom usually works until 3 or 3:30, so I get to start dinner around 2:00 so it's ready when she gets home. After dinner we all open presents (thank you's all around) and then Dad and I go home Christmas night. Dad because he has to work and me because some mail-order packages the day after Christmas and I'd rather not leave them until the weekend.

I'll probably then stay home through Sat in order to get to church and Mom can either pick me up from there or on Sun. Depending on what Matthew gets for Christmas I may be skipping church the week after New Year's. All Mom said when I told her I might get Matthew a new game for his Gameboy was, "Let me just say that after Christmas his Gameboy will be obsolete." Meaning she got him a new game system, like a Wii or an X-Box. Hmm....

Baaa

Micah 2:12, Matthew 9:36, Mark 6:34, 1 Peter 2:25. All these verses (and many besides) depict the followers of Christ as sheep. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes it's bad. Some characteristics of sheep are: they're intellectually stupid (I think their i.q. is somewhere in the single digits); they get lost easily; they're helpless, totally dependent on the Shepherd; they're often unaware of danger in their midst; they're submissive and non-resistant.

Now, as is the case with most church services, there's a lot of standing and sitting and standing again at different times during worship. We stand for a hymn, sit for the Pastoral Welcome, stand again for two more songs, sit for the offering. It can get confusing if you're not paying attention. Case in point (and this ties into us being sheep). In my church, to indicate that the congregation should stand for a song, the worship leader makes a kind of upward sweeping motion with his hands. It's been done this way as far back as I can remember. Well I don't know if it was all the snow we got this past Sat that threw people off a bit, but when the piano started (for what we soon realized was the offering song) the worship leader made a half-motion with one hand and half the congregation stood. There was an awkward moment, then some of them sat while more people stood or leaned forward preparing to stand. Then the ushers came forward and everyone figured out where in the program we were, so they all sat down.

Whew, big sigh of relief, glad that's over.

The next time we all had to stand for a song, the worship leader went over the top with the gesture, bending a little at the waist and lifting his hands up over his head. I guess he wanted to make sure no one misunderstood that time.