Christmas

It seems that it has been sometime since last created a blog on any subject. however, in the light of Covid 19 and the extra-ordinary times we are living I thought I would give an up date. Since he lockdown we have suffered like any other Church trying to assess our circumstance and how to live in current times.

Time has flown by and at the ready we have been open for worship for some time. Lock down for us came at the beginning of April and since we have after a 6 week period f doing nothing we began to record services for distribution and have been doing so ever since. We also had to get our minds around communion which we agreed that if Elders no more than three gathered we could set the elements apart and so consecrate the elements which would only leave the act of distribution. We then invented the communion basket taken from my early youth and experience of the Miner's Gala. Each year in our small village of Oakley Fife the village would hold a miners Gala where all teh families of the village would meet for games, highland dancing, races, but often due to bad weather it was cancelled. All dressed up and no where to go the miners committee would send out little picnic bags with our goodies.

In a way the spirit was still there and even though we were all in the house as a family we made out that we were at the Gala. The Gala I must admit was a big affair, with most of my fathers family being there. Every year we all went to each others Galas so it was a big family affair, often attending four other Galas,, Comery Gala, Ballingry, Hill of Bath and Lumphinains, and sometimes Dunfermline Gala which was the biggest..

Today the weather is just as inclement and as minister and elders we agreed whole heartedly that it would be incredible presumptuous of to make the assumption that The Presence or The Spirit would be there on Zoom. So we decided to take this course of action.

So far we have celebrated communion this way three times and the response has been good. The other reason why we did it this way was that most of our members are not computer literate as some congregations, so when we asked who would like to participate in this manner half the congregation were willing to do so. At each communion there was a theme, a cross as a reminder of the crucifixion, a stone as a reminder of the twelve foundation stones of the church in Revelations and this Christmas a small card from NSPCC with a sticky label with a print of the Nativity to convey he message ,'put the Christ back into Christmas'..

Christmas will be a strange time with restricted singing and short services. May be God is trying to tell us something in with the new ways and out with the old? My question is this, have we been worshipping god correctly over the last four or five hundred years? Why all these churches, church buildings, different denominations. Why do we defy Christ's own words when He was challenged when He exorcised a demon and was called Beelzebub? Where in reply he said, 'a house that is divided upon its cannot stand'.

How strange we never give it a thought!