If you were in church this past Sunday you would have experienced something quite wonderful. Thank you to Nancy, along with Rob for leading the children, youth and us old(er) folks in a blessed time of worship. Actually the children and youth led us. It was beautiful!

For me there is nothing sweeter than hearing children in worship. I love it when the children yell out the response to the Call to Worship on Sunday mornings, demonstrating to us what an exclamation point really means. Or when they sing at the top of their lungs a familiar song of worship, better yet, I love when they can contain it no longer and they just have to dance in the aisle. It is the sweetest, purest form of worship.

I think children have the right idea when it comes to worship.

I think children have the right idea when it comes Christmas too.

Children just seem to “get it” much easier than some of us adults. Children believe more readily and they speak more readily. There is a joy and innocence in the celebratory part of Christmas that children have that we, as adults, tend to lose over time. They are not jaded with cynicism. The are not motivated by commercialization. If you tell a child that Christmas is when we celebrate Jesus’ birthday, they’re completely fine with that.

I read recently about one Christmas tradition whereby the familyset an extra place setting at the Christmas dinner table to symbolize the presence of Jesus at their family’s birthday celebration for Him. After all the presents had been opened on Christmas morning, the grandmother asked her little granddaughter, “Did you get everything you wanted for Christmas, dear?” The little girl replied, “Well, no, but it’s not really my birthday.”

What a wonderful perspective!

Speaking of perspective perhaps you heard about the little girl who came home from Sunday school triumphantly waving a paper.

“Mommy!” she said, “My teacher says I drew the most unusual Christmas picture she has ever seen.”

Her mother studied the picture and concluded it was indeed a very peculiar Christmas picture. “This is wonderfully drawn, but why are these people riding on the back of an airplane?”

“It’s the flight into Egypt,” the little girl said, with a hint of disappointment that the picture’s meaning was not immediately obvious.

“Oh,” the mother said cautiously. “Who is this mean looking man at the front?”

“That’s Pontius the pilot,” the girl said now visibly impatient.

“I see. And here you have Mary, Joseph, and the baby,” the mother volunteered. Studying the picture silently for a moment, she summoned the courage to ask, “But who is this fat man sitting behind Mary?”

The little girl sighed. “Can’t you tell? That’s round John Virgin.”

If ever you feel blue this Christmas, find a child, sit down with a cup of hot chocolate—and discover anew the joys of Christmas!

This Christmas, I encourage you to rekindle the wonder of Christmas that you may have had as a child. Be excited, be playful, be as extravagant as you can, and be a model of the excitement God has when He gives gifts to us.

Wishing you a Merry, Joyous and Blessed Christmas!

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Join us this evening for two special Christmas Eve services and then on Sunday morning, Christmas morning as we celebrate together to true meaning of this festive season.