If you are anywhere China Grove, NC you should check out the outdoor "pageant" that my church does called "Journey To Bethlehem." Visitors drive through the church's property that has been "transformed" into the village of Bethlehem. There are live actors and animals.
It is pretty cool. I went through it last year for the first time. I am a tad cynical, and I was pretty impressed. It was MUCH better than I had expected. This year I am a participant. Perhaps I can post a picture of myself in costume here before the event begins.
The pageant will be nightly December 12, 13, and 14. If I am not mistaken, it runs from 6-9 pm. It will likely be postponed or canceled in the event of rain, so check back here if you are interested. I'll give more specifics as the time draws near.
The picture above is the back of our float in the recent Landis/China Grove Holiday Parade. I got to drive the truck that pulled the float. I just found out today that we won a prize for our float! Cool!
We had some folks that rode on the float and others who walked (or to be more accurate, ran) alongside and handed out candy and information about Journey To Bethlehem. It was really interesting hearing all of the comments from the people watching the parade. I rather doubt that most of them knew I could hear what they were saying. I had no idea how many people were familiar with this really neat tradition that my church keeps.
In other news today I officially joined the church, so that was kind of neat. It feels oddly different! (But not in a bad way.) I also made my debut on the recorder today playing along to three songs. It was a bit nerve wracking, but I managed to survive.
Hope you all had a great start to your holiday season and I hope that the remainder of the year will be good. Thanks for reading and God bless you!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Coming Soon...
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2 comments:
Congrats on joining your new congregation!
Please do post more info on the drive through pageant - looks like it would be a fun & meaningful outing for the holidays!
I'm like you - the whole commercialization of Christmas just annoys me. My attempts over the years to keep it all low-key have earned me the title of 'Grinch' in my family. How about we all just have worship, fellowship, family and food and skip the whole presents and Santa thing this year...
Thanks!
I'll get the information about JTB and get it posted in the next little bit.
The commercialism has hit me harder this year than in years past. It is like the stores are trying to drum up extra "spirit" this year to make up for the weak economy. It just comes back down to the greed of our society I am afraid (though many of these retailers are probably struggling just to survive.)
The older that I have gotten the less that presents and Santa have played a role at all. I like presents as well as the next person I suppose, but it has been very difficult the past couple years to participate from my own economic position. I guess that has changed my perspective some. But at heart I am a giver and really enjoy being able to do that.
I think I just wish that more emphasis were put on worship during the holidays. After all they are supposed to be 'holy' days.
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