Last night was our first "Christmas Eve" service. Our church always spreads them out to accomodate people who travel. I was fortunate to be the photographer last night. Wow, I took early 500 photographs. It was a visual spectacular. I will go back again to actually watch. The sermon was fabulous and I will even spill the beans on the meaning of the Purple Christmas. While it has been a great promotional phrase with t-shirts (4000 of them!) and rear car windows being painted, the meaning of a Purple Christmas is that purple represents royalty. With Christ as our Savior, He invites us into his royal family. As a side note, I was wearing my shirt at a doctor's office yesterday when a man asked me about it. We had about a 10 minute conversation. He said that blue represents the sky, thus God, and red represents the Earth, thus man. Combined they make purple. Interesting thought.
I am using this photo because yesterday's word was "texture". I loved all the textures (not to mention colors!) on stage.
You may be wondering what the huts are. They are the tops of silos made into living quarters. Our church helps out an orphanage in Haiti. When Hurricane Isaac blew through, another orphanage lost their facility. It was by the power of God that many things were in place (long story) to supply these buildings to that orphanage within 2 weeks of that storm. An unbelievable time frame. But as our pastor stated, God doesn't worry about the "how". This is a photo of our Pastor David and I can't tell you the last time I saw him wear a suit!
If you want to hear the great sermon on a Purple Christmas, you can watch online at www.cbglades.com. They stream live or you have to wait a few days after Christmas to get the podcast version.
wow....so glad you explained the picture. made it much more meaningful and deep. fantastic idea!!! thanks so much for sharing, not only the pic, but the message too. Merry Christmas to you.
@clmiller Thanks, Caren. I was showing a house today to one of the pastors. The whole family had on Purple Christmas shirts. The owners son (grown) was so excited! He said he goes on Sunday nights!
@karenzachary Thanks, Karen. It has been a great Christmas idea!
Great capture Danette! We went to a John Tesh concert last year and they used a lot of purple lights and it was such an eerie feeling. You felt like your eyes were continuously trying to focus through the haze. You captured that haze well!
P.S. I think it is wonderful that your church is putting on so many "Christmas Eve" services as well as ministering to the people of Haiti. A member of our church sits on the board of Grace Mission to Haiti. We have sent a number of work teams there to help over the years. It is amazing to hear the stories coming out of Haiti of God working in so many lives there.
@skipt07 Thanks, Skip. They often have mist on stage. The purple has been lovely, but I noticed a bit hard on my eyes. Boy did it give me a hard time with the white balance in the lobby with the purple LED lighting! People were looking a bit purple-ish but nothing I could do about that, besides it would lose the effect. Our church has for years put on many services to accomodate the crowds. Members have been encouraged to not go tomorrow unless they are bringing someone. Tonight, all 2000 seats were full. I imagine it will be overflow during tomorrow's 3 services. We have many Haitian people in our community. Last year, when they were hit by another storm, we sent them an entire week's offering (which was about $100,000). Haiti is a challenging place. God does good work.
What a unique Christmas Eve theme and stage set up! Really neat! I love to see the church reaching out into the world, sharing the love of Christ! Our church is very active with missions and missionaries around the world.
@karenzachary Thanks, Karen. It has been a great Christmas idea!
@raineyday Thanks and Merry Christmas to you!