community via nativity

On the weekend before Christmas, my neighbors and my family got together and did a live nativity in our front yard.  It was all my wifey's idea and she gets all the credit for recruiting and organizing.  She is very gifted in that area.  My wife can get things done that completely blow my mind.  That said, this endeavor was a bit over her head.  The idea came to her just a few weeks prior and there were a lot of pieces she wanted in place in a very short time.  She immediately began asking our neighbors in the community (the same ones that we have been encouraging to meet with us on Sundays) if they would participate.  She also began asking every church in our community if they had any costumes we could borrow for the weekend.  The results were amazing!

After much coercion, all the roles were filled.  The week before the event the Primitive Baptist church across the street had a Christmas play that they invited us to attend.  We did and the ended up giving us some of the props they were using for the scenery.  After a bit of re-engineering, the pieces were transformed into a stable in our front yard.  That saved us a lot of time and money on materials and construction.  But that was just the beginning of God's amazing work.  Soon we had boxes of authentic looking costumes from another local drama that just had their last night.  Everyone was on board and all the pieces were falling into place.  That is when the flu hit...

The day before the nativity we received a call from an entire family of participants that were home bound for the weekend with a horrible virus.  Now we were short and angel, a wise man, and a shepherd.  My clever and determined wife decided to dress as a magi and paint on a beard in order to give us three.  We were just going to settle and be without an angel and one shepherd.  Then at the last minute...and I mean last minute, literally one minute before 7pm (our scheduled start) a little girl we had never met before got permission from her parents and donned our angel costume.  She was well behaved and did a great job!  The entire production was a huge success.  We even made the local news at 11 where Jessica did a great job during an interview of talking about bringing the community together to focus on Jesus.  Painted on beard and all!  A cross dressing wise guy :-)

When it was all said and done I was most amazed at how not only our neighbors but the local churches came together and chipped in to make the nativity a success.  It was the talk of our community.  Pastors called wanting to know how they and their families could get involved.  Everyone seemed to have a great time and although we have yet to meet altogether with these families for a gathering of the church, we did come together and impact our community for Christ.  I'm still prayerful and hopeful that God will continue working to bring us together for much more and most importantly bring us together as the body of Christ in practice.  As we continue looking and listening for ways God wants us to minister in our neighborhood I am also hopeful that the local churches will be equally as generous and supportive.  Time will tell because God is faithful.