the worship experiment, uk: week 9

St. James Church
29 November, 10:30am

I’ve come full circle. Today I went back to the first church I visited, but this time I went to the morning service. Unfortunately, I got a little lost on the way over, so I was about 10 minutes late. The room was totally packed—at least 250 people were there.

It is the first Sunday in Advent, and instead of an Advent wreath (I was told that they are only used in high churches), St. James has a Christingle service. According to the Wikipedia entry, “Christingle is a symbolic object used in advent services in churches of many Christian denominations. It has its origins in the Moravian Church, with the first recorded use in Germany, in 1747.” A Christingle is an orange wrapped in a red ribbon, with fruits or candies stuck into the orange with 4 toothpicks. In the center, a candle is fixed into the top. The orange represents the world; the ribbon represents the blood of Jesus; the candies represent the fruits of the earth and the four seasons, and the candle represents Jesus, the Light of the World.

Because the Christingle service is a family-oriented service with lots of children involvement, the kids stayed through the entire service, and most of the time they were invited to the front. (Actually, kids were running around the room much of the time.) The band, besides guitar, electric guitar, drums and three vocals, included a small “orchestra” with string bass, trombone and clarinet. For the first time, I actually knew 75% of the songs (instead of 25 or 50)! It made me feel at home to have an orchestra, albeit a tiny one.

The worship leader and a woman, whom I assumed was the children’s director, led the service, which was about light. There were two mini-messages, and a creative time of prayer: gum drops were passed out, and each color represented a different topic to pray for. We were given a few minutes to pray silently. The second mini-message ended with the Christingle time. The children’s director explained the meaning of Christingle, then the children and their parents went to the four corners of the room (representing the four seasons) and were given their own Christingles, which they lit and brought back to their seats as we sang (believe it or not) “Shine, Jesus, Shine.”

It was a special service and exciting to be a part of a light-hearted, festive, family service, and interesting to celebrate Advent in a different way.