Special Normal Thanksgiving

Half the church up-front for the dancing celebration!

It was Christmas Day at our church. People were excited and there was special music that different individuals and fellowship groups had prepared. The youth choir came up singing as an introduction as they do every week, and then the electricity went out, so they repeated the song again and again with slightly different verses until someone put the generator on. It was clear they wanted the electricity back so they could have a special musical intro that the band had rehearsed for the main song they would do. Plus they handed out song sheets to all the group, building the anticipation that this was going to be some special Christmas song they were going to share with us.

After a rousing intro by the band, the youth broke into the most familiar indigenous song that our family all knows the words to because it is a song the church sings just about every week. Every week during the time of giving offerings after people have shared what they’re thankful for this week, they need a song about thanksgiving, and this is the go to song we do most of the time. It talks about how it’s a necessary thing for us to give thanks for all the good God has done. But I was shocked to hear that this was the “special” song the youth had come up with for this special occasion. When the youth finished, the worship leader/liturgist for that week stepped to the mic and said what a wonderful thing that was. How glad he was the youth had reminded us the most necessary thing for us to do on a special day like today is to give thanks to God for sending Jesus and everything else he’s done for us. Then he said that since the youth reminded us, we all need to stand up and dance and sing our thanksgivings as the youth lead us in the song again. So we spent the next 10 minutes in absolute jubilant celebration, which reminded me of the atmosphere at a wedding reception where everyone is just happy and dancing like there’s no tomorrow. What a turn of events for a special, normal thanksgiving for Christmas!

-- El Padre