Carols - Mileposts

It is a landmark of sorts. It is certainly a marker along the path to one of my goals ...

Today, we printed pages of Christmas carols and hymns, from the developing "College Church Hymnal." It is the first time we've had something we can just hand off when people at church ask if there isn't something they could use for a party, event, or neighborhood caroling. Thanks to the careful, diligent, hard work of others in this past year, today we could print off something other than photo-copies from random sources. These are pages as they are going to look in the Hymnal. They are uniform, clean, easy on the eye ... and all ours!

We did not print the entire Advent or Christmas collection. Just those things in Public Domain, which any random group of carolers is likely to be able to sing without preparation. You could probably make a list of 15 familiar, popular Christmas hymns and carols, and find these 12 on your list.

Well, anyway, here we are. Tonight, the pastoral staff will sing from preview pages of our hymnal, at our Christmas party. Then next week, for the church staff Christmas lunch, again we will hold our own hymnal pages and sing together.

That's exciting, and the closest I've felt to seeing the conclusion of this work. Honestly, it's still not that close. But it is a landmark.