This Sunday is our 'Family Favourites' service. All the hymns and songs have been chosen by church folk, as will be the two Bible readings. I have also been asked if we can launch our annual shoebox campaign, which we are doing a bit differently this year: rather than waiting for people to fill shoeboxes at the last minute, in good Dibley fashion, someone has offered to oversee collection and packing of boxes with individuals contributing items of their chossing over a longer period of time. I have just printed off copies of the Operation Christmas Child knitting patterns so that those who knit can contribute in that way.
The challenge is that I have to provide a 5 minute reflection or meditation and I won't know for certain what the readings are until they happen. For a lover of order rather than chaos this is a really good challenge! I do know that one reading will the feeding of the 5,000 because the person has told me (though whose/which version I won't know until she reads it) but the other one could be anything at all. Having failed to find anything suitable (e.g. on sharing or generosity) in my various books of poems and meditations I am just going to have to trust that inspiration arrives on the day. Good challenge.
Comments
What a great idea! I'll have to try it here, though I'm not sure that I'd be able to rises to the challenge. It would be good to have a go, though. We've just had a Songs of Praise as part of our anniversary weekend, and that certainly worked excellently, with members of the congregation choosing, and introducing, the hymns.
We do the shoebox appeal each year - but have certainly never thought about it this early on in the year. I thought that we were getting ahead of ourselves in deciding our harvest project in May - were doing Samaritan's Purse's 'Turn on the tap' water project.
David