Dinner, a gingerbread competition, and campfire carols. That’s how Church of the Wilderness, Durham, the synod’s newest mission start, celebrated Christmas this year.
Pastor Meghan Richter, says that at each gathering this community uses poems for their benedictions. On Christmas, the benediction came from Edmund Sears’ “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.” (1849).
And you, beneath life’s crushing load,
whose forms
are bending low,
who toil along the climbing way
with painful steps and slow:
look now,
for glad and golden hours
come swiftly on the wing;
oh, rest beside the weary road
and hear the angels sing.
For lo! the days are hastening on,
by prophets seen of old,
when with the ever circling years
shall come the time foretold,
when peace shall over all the earth
its ancient splendors fling,
and all the world give back the song
which now the angels sing.
Enjoy pictures of their community celebration below!
(Their benediction poem for the New Year is also shown below.)
