Christmas In Elizabethton

The elves at FPC Elizabethton have put together a few opportunities for celebrating Christmas. Please come to one or more and let others know. Here is the scoop:

December 20, 11:00 am: Fourth Sunday of Advent.

The choir, directed by Beverly Shuck (yes--my lovely), will present Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols.

December 20, 5:30 pm: Our Christmas Dinner.

Bring a dish to pass. We have communion and several of our youth will play some Christmas songs on their instruments. This is one of the most cherished events of the year.

December 21, 7 pm: Tidings of Comfort.

On the shortest day of the year we will hold a special candlelight service; a time when we can, with others, acknowledge the “blue” feeling we may have at Christmas time, reflect upon the reasons for them, and then offer them to God. This will be the final service honoring the via negativa. The sanctuary will be open at 6 p.m. for silent reflection.

December 24, 10 p.m. Christmas Eve Candlelight Service.

Christmas Eve will begin the via creativa, the next phase in our guided worship. Autumn was spent honoring the via negativa, or the “way of letting go and letting be”. The via creativa reminds us that “In Creation, God is both immanent and transcendent.... We experience that the Divine is in all things and all things are in the Divine.”

What better time to begin the path of creativity than at the celebration of Christ’s birth? Join us at 10:00 pm for this special service of poetry, readings, song, and silence.

'What good is it if Mary gave birth to the son of God fourteen hundred years ago, and I do not also give birth to the Son of God in my time and culture?" --Meister Eckhart (14th century)