'twas two nights before Christmas

Can you see our solar lights sparkle?  Yeah, neither can we.

This Christmas season has been different than any other.  

We had 'Christmagiving' back at Thanksgiving when all 6 of the grands were here and 2 of our sons and all 3 of our daughter's in love were here.  Our middle son had to work and couldn't make it but he has been able to be here 3 times this year already so we can't complain.

His wife, the sweetheart, came without him and brought their three kids.  She said some of her friends thought it weird that she came to her in-laws without her hubby, but I am privileged to have good relationships with all three of the girls.  I love them as much as if I they had always been mine.

So all the meal prep was done and the gifts were exchanged before December even started.  And I was so thankful for that.  I could fully focus on the Christmas Pageant.  And our Christmas choir which I thoroughly enjoyed directing.

Thoroughly.  Of all the volunteer positions I have held at any church - directing the choir is my favorite.

These sweet folks agreed to be in choir.  We had a unique mix.  There were about 20 of us (some not in the picture).  There were 5 over 70 and 5 under 20.

There had not been a choir for at least 5 years.  We had to borrow folders, buy new music, cobble together risers and figure out how to get the best sound out of 20 people in our new sanctuary.

It was so much fun.  I love these folks so much.  They had no idea whether or not I knew what I was doing but they decided to go with it.  

They did a great job.  We had a nice response, but that is NOT why we did it.  We did it to glorify God.  We sang Emmanuel and Gloria, words taken from Scripture and sung back to God.

And after all that was done - the pageant and the choir - my mom took a turn for the worse.  She has suffered from Alzheimer's for nearly 13 years, been in memory care for nearly 5 and broke her hip nearly 3 years ago.  She cannot walk, talk, care for herself or feed herself.

She suffered a couple of seizures and I began to make plans to go down sooner than I had planned.  But the latest report from one of my sisters is that Mom has rallied and is even better than she was this past summer when I last saw her (we are 1,000 miles away).

So there have been surprises this month.  Some pleasant.  Some not.  But God promises His peace that passes understanding and He has made good on His promise.

Our Christmas has been different.  Different but good.

There were many surprises about that first Christmas.  Mary and Joseph surprised by an Gabriel's announcement.  Shepherds surprised by an angelic host.

The arrival of the Savior was different (than expected).  Different but good.  Really, really good.  The best. News. Ever.

10 steps to a pretty good Christmas pageant part 3

7.  Have a videographer and a photographer.  

Preferably this person will not be a parent or a grandparent of one of the pageant participants.  You want to get pictures of everyone - not just one or two of the kids.  :)  But you want to record this event for posterity's sake and for future reference when recreating the pageant.

8.  Love the kids.

These tips are not in order of importance by any means.  It is our primary job to love Jesus and to love our children and connect them to each other.

Kids from all kinds of different backgrounds with all kinds of baggage.  Again, our goal is not to present a perfect performance but to tell this most wonderful of truths - that God loved us and sent His Son.  

Be patient with your kids quirks, their misbehaviors, their failure to listen.  We want to make this whole thing - from start to finish a GOOD memory in their little hearts and minds.

9. Say thank you.

Thank the parents, the grandparents.  Thank the kids.  Thank your pastor.  Thank your teachers, your helpers, your tech team, your church secretary, your family, your musicians, your costume makers, your partners in ministry.  Say it verbally, say it often.  And when it is all said and done - send out thank you notes.

10.  Lists help eliminate stress.

I am a consummate list maker.  There is nothing more satisfying to me than making a list and checking it twice.  And checking everything off of it.

Here are some of the lists I made:

• people to contact
• props needed
• costumes needed
• practices scheduled
• communications to send
• music to procure
• sound and lighting needs
• snacks for practice time (gluten, dairy, sugar and peanut free)
• details to talk to my co-laborer about

That is just a small sample of my lists.  I needed a list of lists!

But when December 9 and 10 rolled around and we had done everything that we could possibly think of to do - we sat back and watched the most amazing story unfold.

A story of a Great God with Great Love for all the people.  Told by children.  

We think we are teaching them about Jesus.  Well, they taught us.

Part One here.

Part Two here.

10 steps to a pretty good Christmas pageant part 2

 4.  Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Our situation at our church may be somewhat unique in that we have a Saturday night service and a Sunday morning service.  As a result we never had all the kids in the pageant together at the same time.  Not even at dress rehearsal because some were missing and because we did not include the nursery kids in the rehearsal.  They are going to do what they want anyway,😂 so we decided to let ourselves be surprised.

Our nine foot tall stable on wheels, the model is my 2 year old granddaughter.

We began sending home communications.  We had a 'Save the Date' note that told of the pageant's rehearsal date and performances dates.  We sent letters, emails, texts, put articles in our monthly newsletter.  We made calls, we talked face to face.

And still we had parents that didn't know what part their child had, or when the pageant was.  I don't know how we could have been any more clear in our communications, but it showed me how busy our young families are and some, many are barely managing to keep on track with their normal lives.

You can't communicate too much.  Some people regularly check some platforms of communication while others hardly ever check.

My advice?  Keep communicating by whatever means possible.

Our 'no room at the inn door' .  It took 3 of us to move it into place.

5.  Save, save, save.

With the wonderful props we had built for us, we have done every thing we can to make sure they don't end up on someone's burn pile (as last year's stable and inn door did - ~sob~).

Make sure you have a specific storage room at church or a basement of some generous church person's home and store everything together, clearly labeled.

The angel costumes, wings and halos are together sorted by size and labeled.  The shepherds tunics, headscarves and belts are together and labeled and sorted by size.  (Pro-tip - use thin elastic headbands to secure the headscarves.

If you don't have costumes, use white men's tee shirts for little angels.  Bathrobes for shepherds.  But if you have good and generous sewists in your church, they can knock out a ton of costumes during a fun Saturday sewing frenzy.  Plan this for September or October.  Encourage and bribe them with snacks.

I had thrown out last year's script which had lots of helpful notes on it. I will not repeat that mistake.

I have a list of what we borrowed from who this year so we can start with calling on those people again.

Just yesterday, another area church borrowed our shepherd costumes.  I made a note of this and told 3 other people where the costumes are.  Just in case I lose my mind between now and next December.  It could happen.

6. Have a sense of humor.

Years ago, at another church, the lady who was in charge of our pageant.  She had gorgeous costumes which she kept stored at her home in a temperature controlled environment (kidding).  She was a perfectionist with a CAPITAL P.  This dear woman wanted to glorify God by presenting a PERFECT PAGEANT.  The result, I don't remember, but I do remember the tension, stress and hurt feelings that resulted.

When you are working with kids, crazy and funny things happen.  Kids cry.  They refuse to perform.  They have accidents.  They pick their noses.   Roll with the punches.

True story: During our dress rehearsal, the three wisemen went behind the stable to pick up their gifts for baby Jesus.  A fight ensued.  All three of them wanted to give Him the gold.  So we had to have a little talk. It was a teachable moment and I'm thankful it happened during the dress rehearsal and not during the pageant.

Several people told me the highlight of the pageant for them was the little boy who could not reach the microphone and could not bend it down close enough to him.  He stood on his tippy toes, leaned his head back and shouted his line in the general direction of the mic.

Professional?  No.   Adorable?  Yes.

Kids praising Jesus.  That is what we are going for.

Once again this has gotten long.  More next time.

Part one here.

Part three here.

10 steps to a pretty good Christmas pageant part 1

Over the next several days I want to share some of the ideas/strategies we used for our Christmas pageant.

While this may come across as a 'how to', it is really specific to our church but adaptable to yours.

1.   Choose the best story.  While The Greatest Story Ever Told has already been taken as a title, the best story ever is worth telling again and again and again.  And again.  Use the one in the Bible.

As mentioned previously, we chose this pageant.

It has a clear script, is narrator-driven which helps those with speaking parts know when to say their lines.  It has ideas for set decorations; some we took, some we didn't. 
It lasts 15-20 minutes which is perfect to perform during a worship service while still allowing the pastor time to make a few remarks or do a devotional.

It has traditional carols included which the congregation is encouraged to sing with the cast.

It is faithful to Scripture (the Best Story!) although my kids were really bummed - especially the three who played the various innkeepers - to learn that there are no innkeepers mentioned in either the Matthew or the Luke accounts.  Of course, 'no room in the inn' implies innkeepers.

2.  Pray.  There is really not much point in presenting a pageant unless it is bathed in prayer. 
 Pray for your kids who are preparing, 
Pray for those who will be attending.
 Pray for this to not add one- more -crazy -Christmas- time -thing -to -schedule, but that it would be a respite from the chaos and a reminder of the true meaning. 
Pray for your ministry team.
Pray for your children.
ESPECIALLY pray for the single parents of your kids.  I know this added extra stress to some of our single parents.  We need to affirm and support our single parents.  Sometimes ex-spouses can try to thwart the good intentions of others so we gave extra grace to these children (not making practices mandatory for them, etc.)


3.  Have a great team.

Our pastor is our greatest cheerleader. I appreciate him so much. 

 Our associate pastor was also a great encouragement.  He is my son and I appreciate him too.  Smile.

 The senior pastor's  wife is the children's ministry director and I am in charge of children's church.  She and I have totally different personalities and energies levels.  I am old enough to be her mother.  IMO we made a great team.  Her energy combined with my phlegmaticism (is that a word?) helped us get things done without as much stress as there could have been.  Was there stress?  Yes, but not between the two of us.

We have amazing builders in our church One of them built a bullet proof door (kidding, but it took 3 of us to lift it) for the innkeepers to pop in and out of.

Our stable was 9 feet tall at the peak and on wheels to make it easier to move around and on and off the platform.  It was amazing.  I hope Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus had as good a quality stable as we did.

We are in a new sanctuary this year.  It is modern.  The rustic/modern trees the decorating committee had built were a perfect backdrop to the stable.

Our tech team is second to none.  They blow me away everytime.  They think of things I would never think of in a million years.  Not only could folks hear what was going on, they also added special lighting to great effect.

We have a great team of children's church workers and nursery workers.  Our nursery crew brought 10-15 little 1-3 year old lambs up to the front of the church during each performance.  No one threw up, no one cried, no one pitched a fit.  It was so sweet.

AND we could not have done this without our junior helpers.  We encourage our junior high/high school kids to help.  And they do!  They seem to love it.  A few of them will often pop in to children's church to ask me if I need help. They are incredible kids.  


~~~~~~~~~~~

This is getting kind of long.  More tips next time!

Part two here.

Part three here.

Christmas pageant

I'm recording here, mostly for my own benefit the process we went through this year in preparing our Christmas pageant.

It happened this past weekend and I couldn't be more thankful for the way it turned out.

We used the script from The First Christmas Pageant.   We actually had performed this last year on a Sunday evening.  Those in attendance were primarily parents and grandparents.  But this year our pastor asked us to perform it during our worship services.  We have a service on Saturday night and Sunday morning.  FOR THE WHOLE CHURCH.

The dual services presented us with our first challenge.  I will address that in future posts.

I recommend this pageant.  It is simple, stays true to Scripture.  We did it with about 20 kids last year, but this year had twice that.  It uses traditional music, nothing new to learn.

It faithfully tells the old familiar story of how much God loves us.  So much that He sent His only begotten Son to earth as a vulnerable baby.  

Though so familiar, it never ceases to amaze me.

categorically speaking

My mind is running in a lot of different directions these days.

I'm still mentally processing all the information I gathered at the conference we attended last week. As director of children's ministries, I need to choose the curriculum for our fledgling church.

In one of the seminars we learned that there are three types of curricula:
1) Biblically based
2) Values based
3) Entertainment oriented.

Of course, I will be choosing the Biblically based kind and have narrowed it down to two possibilities:

1) Generations of Grace
2) Harvest Bible Chapel Children's Curriculum

I want to make this decision by the end of the month and begin recruiting teachers.

AND
Now that we know grandbaby #3 is a girl, I can start making a quilt for her.
I'm undecided between a patchwork type quilt or this one. Any advice? Particularly from the baby's mama?

ALSO
There is a wedding in our future. Daniel and Laura have set the date of March 31 of next year. While as the mother of the groom I have limited responsibilities, I am collecting ideas to make the rehearsal dinner fun and enjoyable. And I might try to lose 10-15 -pounds. :)

PLUS
The garden didn't weed itself while we were gone. Strawberries are now in season and I need to go pickin' and jammin'.

Lots of categories to concentrate on! What's on your mind these days?

'I was glad when they said unto me' part 2

It always happened. I would be all dressed for church. My son (s) would be all dressed for church. We hardly ever made it through breakfast without an incident. Spillage. Spit-up-age. Diaper issues. ☺ Food, spit-up or other things would now decorate my clothes. We would need to change our clothes and then would be late for church. I can’t stand to be late for anything. Especially not church.

Something had to change.

God showed His favor to me at this time. I listened to the local Christian radio station at the time. Their main demographic was 45+ females. I was in my mid-late twenties. But I loved the music and the programs.

One such program was Chapel of the Air. The host was David Mains a pastor from Chicago (interestingly enough – I had sung at that church when I was in high school and had a friend who attended there). His wife Karen was a frequent guest. One day she was talking about a book she had written. ‘Making Sunday Special’. I knew I had to have it.

Once it was in my hot little hands, I devoured it. And instantly applied the principles. It changed our Sunday mornings. Maybe Pat and the boys didn’t notice, but I did.

Here are some of the things I did as a result of reading this book:

1. I started praying more. For peace, calm and organization. For forgivenss for not being better prepared.
2. As the Israelites prepared for their Sabbath the day before the actual Sabbath, I started preparing earlier for Sunday.
3. Diaper bags were packed on Saturday afternoon.
4. Laundry was as caught up as possible. Outfits –down to the underwear, socks and shoes were laid out and back-ups were noted if necessary.
5. Bibles and Sunday school papers were located and any ‘homework’ was completed (memory verses were worked on throughout the week).
6. I tried, with limited success, to keep Saturday night as calm as possible. Earlier bedtimes, quieter stories, television off. I tried to make our home a peaceful home, yet also wanted to have the boys eagerly anticipate going to church.
7. If I was involved in teaching Sunday school it was always my goal to have my lesson ready early.
8. If I was in choir or on worship team, I enjoyed meditating on the words of the songs throughout the week.

I didn’t do any of this perfectly, but am so grateful to be able to report to you that all three of our boys love the church and regularly attend. Hopefully they don’t have any memories of chaotic, tense, rushed mornings.

And now I pray that they teach the next generation to love the church. To be glad when someone says to them ‘let us go unto the house of the LORD’.

'I was glad when they said unto me' part 1

I have always been excited to go to church. My folks did a great job of instilling a love for the church in the four of us kids.

Preparations began on Saturday evening. After supper, bath time would begin.

And then the fixing of hair. Three little stair-step girls lined up in front of the television (Lawrence Welk). Tangles would be combed out (ouch!), bristly curlers rolled into hair fixed into place with a pink pick that would necessarily have to graze the scalp to hold the roller in place. Only later would these be replaced by the nice soft foam (again with the pink!) rollers.

Sunday morning we would wake up to the sounds of Tennessee Ernie Ford LP albums on the stereo. Dad would be singing, pancakes would be made. Mom would cheerfully remind us of Psalm 122:1 – ‘I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the LORD.’ No whining, complaining or pouting allowed! We girls would be dressed up – often in matching dresses. And at Easter, bonnets, patent leather shoes and white socks edged in lace.

Such great memories. I loved Sunday school – the stories on the flannelgraph of Jesus who did the most wonderful things – walked on water….healed people…..loved children and defied death.

I have always loved going to church – even when I was a teenager! Mom and Dad taught Sunday school and there were times when I helped.

Fast forward several years. I was a young wife. And still loved the church and wanted to everything – teach Sunday School, sing in the choir. You name it, I was more than happy to do it. Serve on the Christian Ed committee? The search committee? The nominating committee? Sure!

Then the babies started to come along. And I discovered something. I did not run as smooth a household as my mother had. Something was missing. I needed help.

Continued tomorrow….