Yesterday, I carefully took down this sign from the porch of the now-closed-for-a-season premises of the Gathering Place.  It will be kept safely until it is re-hung at a future date.  Shortly, I will head off to join a small working party hoping to do the rest of the sorting and a bit a shifting of the stuff we couldn't do until now.

It's the words that make this an Advent theme... a tryst as "a journey undertaken by a company pledged to travel together".  It is a perfect summary of Baptist ecclesiology properly understood... a covenant community of believers in Jesus who walk together, and watch over each other, in ways known and to be made known.  It is also totally advent... advent as coming/becoming/travelling towards a hoed-for destiny/destination.

On Sunday we sang, "it's from the old we travel to the new" and that's what Advent is all about... somewhere in the midst of familiar rituals and warm remembrances is the promise of newness.

Better get myself wrapped up warm and some sturdy boots in my feet!  From Christingle tape to mirrors to folding tables to unopened boxes of light bulbs, there are things to be sorted, packed and shifted!