Family Advent Service - Church House

I LOVE to attend worship. It is always challenging and thought-provoking and I always leave church feeling a whole lot better than I did when I walked in! This morning’s service at Church House was another wonderful experience of seeing the children joining in, really being a part of everything that was going on.

This is one of the main aspects of worship at St David’s Uniting which I enjoy: it’s interactive! Both the young people and children and us bigger kids (the adults) had fun making paper prayer chains, linking our prayers to one another’s and hanging them at Church House and, later, making the branches of the Christmas tree with our paper hands, on which we had written about how our hands can be used to help others.

We thought about the people involved in the story of Christ’s birth and how they might use their hands:

Mary
Cooking, sewing, collecting water:
tasks of being a dutiful daughter.
Wonder, worry, rumbling tum,
part of being an expectant mum.
Now I’m packing, panicking, praying,
wondering what the others are saying.
Hoping that Joseph will make me his wife,
who’d want to travel at this time of life?

Joseph
Hands used to tools and working with wood,
that does what you want it to, just as it should.
Not so with people; they’re harder to shape,
and now me and Mary are caught in a scrape.
Hands used to hammering, sawing and planing,
now lead a donkey and wife with complaining.

The Innkeeper
Rough hands, busy hands, no time to stop hands.
Sore hands, serving hands, wave ‘Go away!’ hands.
‘Wait!’ hands, think hands,
‘Where can they go?’ hands
Shepherd
Look at my hands with ground in dirt,
that care for sheep when they’ve been hurt.
Holding a staff to guide the flocks.
Scaring wolves by throwing rocks.

Shielding eyes from dazzling light.
Calming sheep that had a fright.
Pointing to the place we seek.
Finger strokes a baby’s cheek.

Wise men

Soft hands saved from manual labour
trace stars, then share with a neighbour.
Fingers counting, calculating,
work out dates for which we’re waiting.
The signs align, we’ve used our brains,
now our hands are holding reins.

Our songs reminded us of all that we had thought about through the service and the children did us proud with their accompaniment on their hand-made bells.

I feel the onset of our Christmas celebrations, now, on this 3rd Sunday in Advent but, of course, the truth is, every day is Christmas day: God sent Jesus to stay with us though every day of our lives – this morning’s service reminded me of that happy fact! Nadolig Llawen i bawb.

Claire Hughes 11 December 2011