Join us December 24 for a special Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols Service. This Advent season, we will be joining with others across the country on a journey to find more hope, love, joy and peace in the world even when we don’t see it! That is the concept behind this year’s Advent and Christmas season entitled “I Believe Even When…Fill the Night with Music and Light.” A short poem found on the cellar wall of a concentration camp shortly after the end of WWII became our anchor text on this journey toward Christmas. Readings for this service will include scripture passages telling the story of Jesus’ birth, poetry by the Sufi mystic and poet Hafiz, and prayers by Jan Richardson. Music for this joyful service is a collaboration with Peter Amidon, Andy Davis and Patty Meyer. Of course, there will be many of the well-loved traditional Christmas carols and the beautiful anthem written especially for this worship series, “I Believe” by Mark Miller, featuring soloist Cathy Hess. We also have a special offering by our middle/high school students who will share a vocal and instrumental version of “Carol of the Drums” by Katharine Davis, and our alumni choir who will be singing the spiritual “Go Tell It On the Mountain”. We will continue to fill the night with music as we enjoy the jazz Christmas classic “A Child Is Born” written by Thad Jones, offered by Rosanne Hebert on piano and Dwayne Johnson on trumpet. The children’s story for our Christmas Eve service is Sleeping Moon by David Lewis Atwell read to us by Mary Alice Amidon. Join us in raising your voices, lighting a candle, and filling this Christmas night with music and light.
Guilford Community Church, an Open and Affirming/ Just Peace congregation of the United Church of Christ (UCC), continues Christmas Eve with worship online at 8pm and on BCTV at 4pm and again at 11:00 pm. The link to the livestream can be found on the church homepage at guilfordchurch.org.