Epiphany Sunday

I forgot to mention our group’s celebration 2 Sundays ago. We gathered at our house for this our first ‘Joondalup Thing’ meeting for 2006. We had a few families away, one family have decided that this thing was not for them which was fine, we certainly don’t want to be wondering if people are in or out and all that awkward stuff, so they felt they needed to remain connected to Whities for the time being.
It was the weekend of the Epiphany, that being the celebration of the visit of the Magi and also the day on which the traditional/orthodox church often celebrates it’s Christmas. Which seems appropriate considering that was the gift giving story in the bible. We decided on a ’12 Days of Christmas’ theme. Each of the kids were given a day in the song (12 Days) to draw or create something representative of that day. One kid painted a picture of a partridge in a pear tree, another made turtles with wings (turtle doves), we had frogs for leaping lords, barbie dolls, rings and so on. The 12 days of Christmas start on the 25 and go through to the celebration of the epiphany, and each one represents something from our Christian faith. The 11 leaping lords are the 11 apostles, 3 French hens are the 3 virtues Faith Hope and Love etc. We went through the song and guessed together the meanings (some of us cheated by researching them first!)

After this the kids went to play and the adults plus Mikaela and Jess remained. We brought symbols of gifts that we desired to bring before the King in 2006. Gifts like a wedding ring representing a desire to committt more deeply to serving a partner in marriage, an open diary representing a life open to accountability and a willingness to be more vulnerable, a watch showing that this year the person would be more aware of all of his waking moments dedicated to Jesus, not just a ‘quiet time’ and so on.
I think it was great that the 2 oldies decided to stay with us rather than join the kids. It shows that they are growing up!
Hey thanks Christine, I know you put a heap of work into this one!

We had a meal together to follow.
We have talked about how we integrate communion naturally into the meal, so next time I think we could ask someone to lead us into a small reflection as they say grace before the meal. I read the chapter on communion in Lee C. Camp’s book Mere Discipleship again and it really challenges you not to be taking the communion lightly, yet it also challenged me that the way we often ‘do it’ in church, is far from where it could be in terms of holding on to the original intent of Jesus for this love feast!

I can’t wait until the Joondalup Crew start to meet weekly for discipleship and formation as well as getting a regular monthlyish Sunday thing happening.