I'm not sure if it's hit YOU yet, but it's almost the Christmas season. It hit me this weekend. After a long first term of school here in Africa, we were just plodding along until we arrived at our school's auditorium on Saturday night and BLAM!--it was Christmas time. Christmas trees, poinsettia decorations, and a band/choir concert featuring holiday music. It was a bit hard to get my head around it. I wrote about this before in my first book, but regardless, old Christmas snuck up on me again. The weather gets warmer here...there are no TV commercials telling us what season is coming...we don't frequent stores that put up decorations after Halloween. How could we know it was nearly upon us?I did my best to get with the times though. Leading worship for our junior high student ministry (like a youth group for 100 7th and 8th graders), I picked out some rambunctious campfire songs but also sprinkled in some holiday favorites. Even though I've played guitar for this event for the past four years, I never associated the late-November bonfire with Christmas.
Until the last song--"Silent Night." Wow, the song was just perfect. And when you consider all the Christmas carols that revolve around angels appearing at night and shepherds out in the fields and Jesus sleeping on the night of his birth...singing outside about Christmas was magical.
The speaker seemed to be moved by the same Spirit last night too. Dan's message was about the angel choirs and their simple statement to the shepherds--Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth. Beautiful words.
The perfect way to start off Christmas.
