Decking the Church Halls for Christmas!

Christmas is a special time for most people and it’s especially meaningful for the Body of Christ. The four weeks leading up to Christmas, Advent, is a season where the Church prepares and expects the much-anticipated arrival of Jesus’ birth. To celebrate this momentum occasion, John Wesley comes together to decorate the church for Christmas, participate in a worship service and enjoys a supper together.

On Saturday, December 4th, over 50 children and adults came to lend a hand decorating the church’s Sanctuary, Chapel and halls. While adults were putting up nativity scenes, constructing Christmas trees and hanging ornaments, the children of the church participated in a ton of crafts and games. In the Fitzgerald Room, kids went from station to station creating clove/orange ornaments, ribbon tree ornaments, paper snowflakes, plate angels, cards, coloring sheets and more! Kids also participated in many fun games, including LEFT-RIGHT where the story of Jesus’ birth was told and whenever the narrative said LEFT or RIGHT you would pass the wrapped gift. Whoever was holding the gift when the story ended, got the gift! Since we had such a large group, we had three presents going around. The prizes were a back scratcher, Pez Candy and Aloe-Infused Comfy Socks. Not bad, not bad!

Then it got a little chaotic…because it was time for the church-wide scavenger hunt! This was no ordinary scavenger hunt…where you find items in the church, but everyone…even the adults cooking and decorating had to participate! Kids had a total of 20 things they had to do/find, including finding a scarf, religious book that’s not the Bible, find out where a particular adult was born, how long Mrs. Amy has been teaching Sunday School, what the address of the church is, make a human pyramid, make a cross our of some type of material and more. It was so much fun! I love how it got the adults participating too!

Once everyone finished decorating and we had a winner in the hunt, it was time to start our worship service. This was a very special service for us because our young children co-led it with Pastor Rebecca. The kid’s would read scripture and then hang Crismon’s (symbolic Christ ornaments) on the Christmas tree. The service explained each of the eight Crismon’s that were hung on the tree; some foundational principles we believe as Christians, some being staples in the Christmas story and some about the nature of God. It was a lovely service.

After all the decorating and running around, it was time to satisfy our empty tummies with delicious homemade chili by Larry and Karyn Briggs. While we were chowing down, we all participated in Christmas trivia, games and more. John Mincieli really does give out the best prizes!

I love that we have opportunities where the young and young at heart can come together, have fun and worship God together. This Advent/Christmas season is truly a special time…a time where we get to celebrate and rejoice in one of the world’s greatest miracles!

To view all of the pictures from the evening, click here.