Sunday's Worship....

A month ago, as we were doing some worship planning, the music minister and I decided that we weren't going to plan anything for Boxing Day.  After all, we reasoned, it seemed unlikely that we would have a big crowd.  So we decided there would be no bulletin, no structure.  People would be invited to sit up front beside the piano, we would ask for favourite carols, maybe some discussion about Christmas, coffee and tea and muffins available in the sanctuary....

And that is what happened.  There were about 20 folks present.  We had coffee/tea/muffins available (mind you nobody actually had any until after the service--force of habit I'd guess).  We convinced people, and it took some convincing, to sit up in the choir loft chairs. and here is the order of things actually happened:

• We lit the advent and Christ candles
• sang a carol 
• a short version of the Wenceslas story was told, followed by singing that carol
• people were invited to share some Christmas memories
• a carol was sung
• some Christmas trivia question (from this test) were asked
• a carol was sung
• people were invited to share some memories of a Christmas that was less than merry/more somber
• a prayer was said
• a trip of university students sang a song
• offering was collected with some stories about special gifts told
• a carol was sung
• we broke for coffe and fellowship

It went well, in the opinion of many.  And may be the model for next year when December 25th is a Sunday