Yesterday was our 15th Annual Christmas Worship Service at OMPC. I don’t do a typical morning recap for the service – as it involves narrative, music and video, and takes the whole hour.
I’ll post videos here at the blog later this week, so be sure and check back, but in the meantime, we had over 180 involved between the choir, band, kids choir and tech team. Such an awesome privilege to get to serve alongside such dedicated and talented volunteers.
Check back soon for videos!
Here is the blurb that I published on the back of our program this morning:
Welcome to The Heavens Declare.
Don’t you love the Christmas season? Endless appointments, shopping, hustle, hurry, stress, to-do lists, anxiety, traf c, crowds, noise, and what can end up being every single minute lled with something that “has to be done” in order to fully appreciate the season…Too much right? Contrast that with the irony of the actual Christmas story. The Heavens declared God’s in nite, compassionate, loving, creating, equipping, molding, redeeming glory in the understated birth of His son – in the company of a few shepherds and animals. Embrace the irony. Our lives – so ridiculously busy, fragmented and scattered in this season as we celebrate the simplicity of a birth, the helplessness of a baby, and the full Glory of God sent to save us from our sins.
A common theme that you’ll hear and experience this morning is
the declaration from the angels. I’m longing to re-embrace that declaration. I’m listening for the reiteration that Jesus is returning. I want to be delivered from the distraction of the season to focus on the only One that really matters. As we sing truths that some of us have known since we can remember, “glory to God in the highest,” “peace has come,” “Christ have mercy (kyrie eleison),” and “noel (the news of what God has done)” let us join as a congregation longing to embrace and to be embraced by the One that knows us, sees us and has come for us.
One of the tunes that I’m most excited about sharing with you this morning is Real – a Nichole Nordeman tune that drives home the idea of this irony that we all face – the reality of a birth, wrapped up in the glitz of what our Christmas season has become.
Come this morning expecting. Come this morning to worship. Come this morning with a desire to slow down and hear what God is saying through His Word and the truths of these songs. Come this morning knowing that the God who created the Heavens declares His love for us, His pursuit of us and His glory in us through the birth of our Savior. Welcome to The Heavens Declare.
