Sunday before Christmas

Jealous
I mix with people who are slowing down and knocking off for the year. I have been mistakenly thinking that after Christmas things will lighten up for me and I'll be able to do some tidying up, some planning etc. But as I think about it I won't be able to do that. I had a man come to me today and ask when my chaplaincies finish for the year? They don't!  Fire service, Ambulance, News Paper and brewery... they just do not shut down. I will be continuing to visit until I actually go on holiday. My weeks will be just as crowded. I see people having end of year parties and slowing down toward the holidays and part of me is jealous. The collegiality would be nice as well as the slowing down. But then I choose to do the work I do and there are other deep rewards.
Normal Christmas
I talk to people about their christmas plans and the variety of responses is interesting. Some see Christmas day as a day to get "pissed". (drunk) They look forward to lazing around drinking "stubbies" all day and collapsing into bed having pigged out and thoroughly drunk. Others tell you their plans and it goes like this. "We gotta go out to the in-laws' for lunch, then we gotta go to my brother's place, then we gotta go to mum and dad's place." It all sounds like hard work! They often do not sound thrilled. When I think back to our 'normal' Christmases I sometimes had this feel. You felt you better not hurt anybody by not turning up. You ended the day having been fed a way too much, the kids were scratchy and you were tired and you had not had much time together as a family. When we began our Community Christmas dinners my mum was quite annoyed. "You don't like family!" she would complain. After the first Christmas day dinner we climbed in the van to drive three hours to where the family were celebrating so that we would not disappoint mum. Half way there the van broke down and we had to turn around and nurse the van home. Since then we have tried to catch up with family on Boxing day or New Years day. I am lucky. I know I will have a good Christmas day. It will be stressful, very busy and tiring. The one thing I am sure of is that late in the afternoon, I will be sitting at home drinking a stubby with an incredibly warm feeling that we have helped a lot of people, guests and volunteers, have a great day. You can't beat that feeling!
No worship next Sunday!
At the Church of Christ Community we are not going to have a church service this coming Sunday. In the last 153 years that has perhaps never happened before. There probably has always been some worship, even in the big snows. It is Christmas Day also, a very important day in the Church calendar. Why is there no worship?  Because we are holding our 23rd Community Christmas day dinner and there is no space for worship. There is no time to hold worship and there will be no space in the building.  But..... we will be open to all, sharing love, breaking bread together (eating) and we will be remembering Jesus.  Perhaps that is worship after all?  I don't get out of the work of preparation though. I have a radio service to record on Wednesday.
Not all bad...
In Church this morning I had a thanksgiving time for the year that has passed. We thought about the sorts of things we as a church had achieved in the year. It was not a bad list. As we sung the final hymn I looked at the congregation and counted up a number of people who were not worshipping with us this time last year. In spite of the fact that we are an old down town church, and we are mostly older people with an organ as our musical instrument (which I am not comfortable with) we have added to our numbers. That's not bad for our style, our city and where we are. We are not static.