Merry Christmas!

My local United Methodist Church is holding three different Christmas Eve services tonight in an effort to serve the spiritual needs of as many church members and neighborhood families as possible.  Each will focus on the nativity story, but celebrate the incarnation in quite different ways.

The earliest service is meant for families with young children.  The pastor and education director will lead the kids in an interactive telling of Jesus' birth complete with costumes and songs.  The middle service is modeled after a lessons and carols service, but is more contemporary in style.  The Praise Band will lead the music which are a mix of well known carols and newer songs, scripture will be read, and the children's choir will sing.  The final service is a traditional lessons and carols service.  There will be song, scripture, and prayer led by the organ, adult choir, and hand bells.  All three services are ending with a candlelight Silent Night (glow-sticks serve as candles for the first service).

The people who attend each of the services will do so for a variety of reasons, but mainly because they find one type of service more enjoyable, more in-line with how they experience the presence of God.  People connect with God in many different ways, and it is the job of the church to assist them in discovering how they best focus on the divine and connect with what is greater than themselves.  There are times when Christians get into arguments over what constitutes "real" worship, but I truly believe what matters is that people are able to experience the love of God through whatever practice or worship style allows them to do this.

So however you are celebrating Christmas Eve and Christmas, I pray you are able to experience the Incarnation - to !know in body, mind, and soul that God is with us.  Merry Christmas to you all.