This year our special offering during Candlelight Carols will go to the Latin American Youth Center. The center will be providing Christmas dinners to families like they did for Thanksgiving. A gift of $25 will cover a turkey and fixings such as gravy, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes.
We will also be collecting coats, scarves, hats and gloves in the narthex for the Latin American Youth Center Winter Clothing Drive.
Christmas Eve At First Baptist • Cancelled
Christmas Eve Service Canceled
While we are all disappointed about not being able to worship together (in-person or online) on Christmas Eve, keeping our community safe is of the utmost importance. This news means your plans may change. As you adjust and adapt, we encourage you to find ways to set aside a few moments on Christmas Eve to read the Christmas story from Luke 2, sing a carol, or worship online with a faith community of your choosing.
Our staff is currently revising plans for in-person activities at the start of the new year. We will communicate those details once they are solidified.
May the peace, joy and love of the Christ Child fill your hearts as you observe Christmas in ways that mean the most to you and your loved ones.
Peace,
Pastor Joel
Blue Christmas: Wednesday, Dec. 15 at 7pm (In-Person)
For many people, the approaching Christmas holiday doesn't bring with it the joy and happiness advertised on television or in greeting cards. For those facing the holidays after the death of a loved one or after a divorce, a miscarriage, the loss of a job, or some other emotional trauma, Christmas can be the hardest season of all. Consider inviting and accompanying someone you know who is in need of hope and comfort.
Return to Worship at First Baptist
Features of the return:
All worshipers will enter the building at the 16th Street entrance (the only entrance available during the next phase of construction).
Those using the FBC parking garage will take the elevator that leads to The Drake apartment lobby, then use sidewalk along O Street to the sanctuary entrance on 16th Street. FBC Greeters will be present to welcome and give direction.
At least one of our new elevators will be operational when we return. The ramp leading to the sanctuary entrance has been widened and will be available for those using wheelchairs.
Sunday morning safety measures include:
Masks required inside the building at all times
Contact tracing upon entering the building
Practice of social distancing
Enhanced cleaning of Sanctuary and other public spaces each week
Church-wide Texting System
We now have a new way for everyone to connect to the church whether you worship in-person or online. It's simple. All you do is text a phrase (see below) to 94000. You will then be promoted to fill out a few simple questions.
If you are new to First Baptist: Text “CONNECTFBCDC” to 94000
To send a prayer request: Text “PRAYERFBCDC” to 94000.
Respond to the prompts, including whether the request is to be held confidentially by our pastoral staff or whether you would like this to be included in our churchwide prayer list.
To check-in to follow COVID safety protocols: Text “CHECKINFBCDC” to 94000 and respond to the prompts.
Worship Matters
“Everything. That’s what is at stake in worship. Everything. Indeed, the troubling, urgent message of scripture is that everything that matters is at stake in worship.” These words were penned by a mentor of mine, and they form the core of my convictions about worship. Although I have known and worked among this congregation for a brief time, you have quickly proven to me that these words form the core of this congregation’s convictions about worship, too.
First Baptist has a long heritage of thinking deeply about what happens during public Christian worship. I sensed this heritage as I helped Lon Schreiber move out of his office in the old education building and thumbed through the thousands of worship orders he had saved. I read about this heritage in the beloved pastor Edward Pruden’s essay about our sanctuary, “An Interpretation of Our Building.” There, Pruden emphasized the independence of Baptists in decision-making about worship and he wrote with humility as well as conviction, “As long as we are free to choose, we are at liberty to choose the thing which seems best suited to our needs at any given place and time.”
As we have planned and prepared to return to in-person worship this Sunday, December 5, we anticipate experiencing together the many elements of worship that this congregation knew and loved before pandemic and renovation: the beautiful sanctuary, the processional and recessional, the choir, robes and vestments for ministers and lay leaders, the organ, prominence of scripture reading, responding to God by giving of ourselves, the Doxology, an emphasis on the Word of God proclaimed, and communion at the first of the month. We will share each of these elements when we gather again this Sunday.
In our planning and preparation, the prayer of our re- opening team, staff, and perhaps you, has been the same as Edward Pruden’s prayer: God, how do we choose the thing which seems best suited to our needs at this given place and time? God, how can we best live into the vision of who you are calling us to be at the corner of 16th and O Street right now?
While God hasn’t given us a precise blueprint, God has prompted within us during our worship planning a renewed commitment to include every person no matter their age, race, or abilities; a desire to be good stewards of the environment; a commitment to engage issues of reparative and restorative justice; and the need to make worship accessible in a virtual space, among other things.
And so, this Sunday when we return to worship in person together, some things will be different. There will be printed worship guides available, but you will also have the chance to access a worship guide with a QR Code, and
you will be encouraged to recycle your paper worship guide—all to save paper. Rather than using hymnals, all music will be printed in the worship guide. This will enable online worshipers—who will not have hymnals—to participate fully in our music making. It also will aid us in using more contemporary and inclusive language in the texts we sing each week. To that end we also will introduce new language for The Lord’s Prayer, and we will replace the Gloria Patri with a hymn that serves as a commentary on the scripture readings we hear. We will also use music to create community by singing familiar Advent hymns with the piano as we come forward for communion.
Worshiping in person together again after 21 months of worship on Zoom will take some energy and effort from us all. But worship always requires our energy and effort. The root of the word worship is “liturgy,” which means “the work of the people.” In this sense, worship is much more like a gymnasium than it is a spa. We go to worship not to be pampered, but to exercise our faith muscles so they are strong when we need to use them as faithful Christ- followers in the world—or as Edward Pruden might say: “to choose the thing which seems best suited to our needs at any given place and time.” See you in the sanctuary.
Pastor Eric