Worship this Advent & Christmas Eve
Longest Night Service
December 18 at 6 pm
There’s an Advent tradition within Western Christianity of inviting people to come together for the Longest Night, a night around the time of the winter solstice, when there are more hours of darkness than light. It’s a time to come together for prayers and laments, to mourn the losses and griefs of the year, to let the tears flow for the hurting places in our own lives, as well as for our country and our world. Known also as “Blue Christmas,” a Longest Night Gathering is a safe and sacred space to share anguish, to plead with God to remember us, to pray for justice and restoration, even to hope against hope, through our doubts and tears and fears, that “God will set things right all over the earth.”
Christmas Pageant
December 24 at 5 pm
Our Christmas Pageant service will include a children’s pageant and familiar Christmas songs. All are welcome to attend this family friendly service!
If a young person in your life would like to participate in the pageant this year, sign up below. We will have two short rehearsals on Sundays, Dec. 11 & Dec. 18 from 12-1:30 pm.
Christmas Eve Lessons & Carols
December 24 at 7 pm and 9 pm
The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols was first celebrated at King's College, Cambridge on Christmas Eve, 1918. It was an adaptation of a similar service that had been written for the cathedral at Truro in 1880. The lessons were reordered in 1919. At King's College and at Edmonds UMC, the Festival is a Christmas Eve service, and the lessons, and music, move deliberately from the season of Advent into Christmastide.