What did you do for Christmas? - Part 1

                Before Christmas we often hear the question,"What are you doing for Christmas?"

The enquirer is usually asking about whether you are travelling to family or them to you, or about what you will eat and how you will spend the day.

As we are still in the Christmas period I thought it appropriate to share,"what we did for Christmas."
In  Hillston we asked the question in our church worship team and came up with the ideas below for our Christmas celebrations together over the Advent season.
You can hear the excitement in Julie's note from her email after the meeting.

"Great discussion today on the Advent stuff – I just get such a thrill when everyone’s ideas come together."

It was a satisfying experience to share in this way with each other as part of our preparation for Christmas
                         We would love it if other people shared their ideas with us too!

Our Theme for Advent- People’s responses to the Message of Christmas.

We did this in two ways-

 We listed the people in the story and preached on one of them each week. -John the Baptist, Mary, Joseph,The Shepherds and Herod.

-and 

We asked someone each week to answer the question -What does Christmas mean to you?- We tried to ask people who are not always up the front and enjoyed listening as people shared about their Christmas experiences.


We used the water liturgy from New England North West Presbytery written by Rev'd Dr Anita Monro, rather than candles usually used to mark each week leading up to Christmas Day. The water liturgy reflects the need in a dry land like Australia for the new, refreshing life of God.

Music -

Our common musical theme would be one of the Messiah choruses for each week. 

For -John the Baptist – Hearing the word -  Messiah Chorus : He shall purify

      -Mary - Response to God’s magnificence based on the Luke passage -Messiah:Hallelujah chorus

      -Joseph – Trust -Messiah: For unto us a child is born

      -Shepherds – Excitement -Messiah: Glory to God

      - Herod – Selfishness and Arrogance -Messiah: Why do the nations?

 Also each week we sang Stuart Townend's "From the Squalor of a Borrowed Stable." -The familiarity of singing it each week added to our understanding of the Christmas story and how it fits in with Jesus' whole story and our own lives.

We also talked about trying to get people to hear the message in new and more compassionate ways. 

                                 We'd love you to share "what you did for Christmas"