Who went to a church service Christmas eve?

[sasquatch]

Of course I was reading Kurt Vonnegut's "Welcome to the Monkey House" the entire thing but I did attend my mom's Presbyterian church service in my old hometown.
:D

[Critters2]

1. Attend one?!! I led one!!

And I think it was quite nice. Lessons and carols, two beautiful choir anthems, followed by a kick-ass Christmas Eve homily. And I'm not the only one who thought so.

[KitchenWitch]

3. I would love to attend a service that you were leading!

:hi:

:D

[Critters2]

4. Thank you. I consider that a great compliment,

and I am honored!

Wait! Here it is again....

[KitchenWitch]

5. Cool - it now resides in my photobucket!

:D

[Critters2]

6. I look forward to seeing it around! nt

[yellowdogintexas]

2. oh yes I did, and it was beautiful as always see photo inside

[sasquatch]

7. I didn't know you attend a mega church?

:D

[Critters2]

15. Looks too much like a church to be a mega-church.

Mega churches look like barns or gyms. That sanctuary is beautiful. Beautiful sanctuaries is against mega-churches' religion.

[yellowdogintexas]

20. you are quite right! That is an OLD church, completed in 1931. and way too

pretty for megachurch. I love it all the time but Christmas Eve Candlelight is my favorite service

[yellowdogintexas]

19. Not a MegaChurch: a United Methodist Church, large congregation, true but

not in megachurch category.

The sanctuary seats 1500, which is paltry by megachurch standards. And our church's theology is liberal, with a fine lineup of good Democrats leading us.

[sasquatch]

26. There's a Methodist church across the street from my apartment

[lizziegrace]

8. I played for one

it was the highlight of the holiday for me.

:)

[tjwmason]

9. Midnight Mass

which (oddly) started at 11:30, then Mass the following morning.

[SPKrazy]

10. I went to watch

my son sing and play in the bell choir

my sister was getting texts from her work the whole service :rofl: even though they were serious issues as she was getting them, it cracked me up.

I couldn't tell you what it was about except to guess, it was xmas eve!!!!

But the singing and bells were awesome :woohoo:

[Critters2]

14. You should be proud! Playing bells is really difficult.

Takes an enormous amount of concentration and discipline. Yep, your son deserves a hug!!

[sasquatch]

17. You shoulda seen my sister crack up from watching me read "Welcome to the Monkey House"

[xmas74]

50. My daughter is also in a

bell choir. She's in the elementary choir but so far loves it.

And her performance was on Dec 23. We had too many guests over to make the 4pm service on the 24th and she had to be in bed before the 11pm service or Santa might not have visited.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

11. I went to one

At the Church where we usually go.

[GenDem]

12. Midnight Mass, too.

The diocese is closing down our little church and making the people merge with a much larger parish. The last mass is this Sunday, and this was the very last Christmas celebration.

There were some strange things happening. The little metal rings that go on the top of the candles kept popping off and bouncing on the table making a very loud noise. At first I thought it was some kids sitting up front dropping stuff. Now I wonder if it was a little para-normal activity. Could the deceased have been showing their displeasure? Probably not, but it's fun to speculate.

[Solon]

13. Last time I set foot in a church, I started to spontaneously combust...

By the way, Fire Extinguishers are fucking cold! :scared:

[realFedUp]

16. Of course

Nicely timed 5:30 service to the church that the IRS pursued
this year and then said "Nevermind" after the church spent
$200,000 on legal services. Fuck you, George Bush Inc.

[New Earth]

18. I did for the very first time...

I've never been a church person and to be honest, I have never been to any church on Christmas Eve. But a few weeks ago I joined a Unitarian Universalist church and went to the Xmas Eve service. I really liked it! I guess a lot of churches do the 'passing on the light' thing with the candles, but I had never heard of it before. That part was very emotional to me. The interesting thing (which is probably why I like this church so much) is that the minister's readings referred to the birth of Jesus, but I think he only mentioned "Jesus" one time throughout the whole service. It was really interesting....to be able to still get the point and the emotion without him sounding preachy. (Actually, his sermons always make me tear up with emotion!)

[CBHagman]

21. Vigil mass at 5:30.

It was SRO. In fact, there almost was no SR.

[Aristus]

22. Mrs. Aristus and I did.

Had to sit through an in-TERMINABLE kiddie Christmas play. :boring: First of all, they wrote it themselves ('nuff said), then it went on for-EVER! I was sitting there convinced my wife was loving it and thinking of kind things to say because I knew she'd ask me later: "How did you like it?".

Turns out, she hated it, and was just about to gnaw off a leg and crawl out of there. So, I didn't have to lie and say how great it was. The pastor had to cut his Christmas message short as a result.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. I sang in the choir at the 11PM service at the Episcopal cathedral AND

at the Sunday morning service on the 23rd and at the Lessons and Carols service on the afternoon of the 23rd AND at the 10AM service on Christmas Day.

It was tiring, but I loved it.

[pipoman]

25. The interior of that cathedral looks very much like

the Cathedral of the Plains in Victoria Kansas.



The day I was there I couldn't shoot the interior but the layout and design is nearly identical to your church.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

27. It's kind of standard late 19th-early 20th century Gothic revival

church interior. :-)

Here it is with people in it, although at Pentecost (note the red banner), not at Christmas.

[pipoman]

28. I didn't know that

the real name of this church is St. Fidelis. My interest in this church is mainly historic. It was dubbed Cathedral of the Plains by William Jennings Bryan during his 1912 presidential campaign. At that time it was the largest Cathedral west of the Mississippi (it is much larger than this pic makes it look). The real interest in St. Fidelis is the cemetery and their iron crosses made by early blacksmiths.

[Hardrada]

34. My wife's church had a F. of L. & C. also.

Smaller church but nicely done.

[Hardrada]

38. Nowadays people go to churches to be entertained

and to the theater to be edified.

-Soren Kierkegaard

Did anyone ever mention him at St. Olaf?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

39. I don't know--I didn't go to St. Olaf

:-)

[Hardrada]

43. Good!

[CatholicEdHead]

24. Went to the 4pm mass

Really good, really down to earth, which is getting hard to find nowadays.

[Kat45]

29. I did. And the service ended with each person holding a candle

in the darkened church, all singing "Silent Night."

[sasquatch]

31. Mine too

[Hardrada]

30. I went to the UCC service at 7 PM and joined in the singing of 8

Christmas carols. And liked the sermon. My wife was with me. She had gone with me last year to both the Lutheran and the UCC Christmas services. This year I just went to her church but often attend both churches.

[sasquatch]

32. My ancestors were Lutherans, I think I might go to a Lutheran service once in my life

[Hardrada]

37. It's really not that difficult. Good luck.

[UrbScotty]

33. Yes (nt)

[Reverend_Smitty]

35. For the first time maybe ever I didn't go to church on Christmas or Christmas eve

I've just been going for the past 5 or 6 years with my dad as mere lip service and as to not cause a fight on Christmas because I was making some sort of "statement". He asked me if I wanted to go on Christmas eve morning and I gave my customary "no" answer and to my surprise he never mentioned church again. I have to say it did feel a little weird not going

[Midlodemocrat]

36. I didn't. But only because I wasn't feeling that great and had guests coming.

I always go.

[sasquatch]

42. You poor thing, you missed out on the communion wine

:P

[AwakeAtLast]

40. I was supposed to sing, but I lost my voice

We went anyway, but it wasn't the same. I spent a lot of time sleeping trying to get rid of this cold.

[Left Is Write]

41. I did.

Then later I spend some time reading Christopher Hitchens.

[GigiMommy]

44. My daughter and I attended

the Children's Service at our Lutheran Church.

[hedgehog]

45. I went and was getting ready to deck the pastor when he started chiding

us for celebrating Christmas the wrong way. Of course, then he segued into a comment about how Romney was a man of faith and more politicians should share their faith, so I was too busy picking my chin up off the floor to get into trouble.


Note to all ministers, priests and rabbis: do not complain to the people sitting in front of you that people just aren't spiritual enough these days!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

46. Yikes, if any clergyperson in any church I attended started praising

current candidates for any political office, I'd complain, first to the clergyperson, then to the vestry, and then to the bishop.

[hedgehog]

47. To be fair, the poor guy looked like death warmed over and

barely made it through the Mass. Maybe being feverish accounted for some of what he said.


In any case, after the sermon, someone noticed that the church was still dark because only the aisle lights were lit. Over the next five minutes, three different people went behind the sacristy and tried to turn all the lights in church on. Watching the various banks of lights switching on and off cheered me up considerably.

[CatholicEdHead]

49. That was done alot in the 2004 race

Where I had a priest say everything in his homily to vote GOP or else. Sadly he got promoted to bishop partly because of it.

[TK421]

48. I did...it was the best hour of sleep I've had in a long time

:thumbsup: