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Hello Great Family,

There is a buzz around Oakwood about favorite Christmas songs.  I’ve heard many offer their opinions about the best classic Christmas carols. Songs like, “Away In The Manger”, “Silent Night”, “O Holy Night”, “O Come All Ye Faithful”, “Hark The Herald Angels Sing”, “Angels We Have Heard On High”, “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus”, “Come On Ring Those Bells” (Bill Miller), I mean, you could go on. There’s lots of really good ones.

Here’s some of the worst: “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”, very confusing for children, “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”, just really wrong on a lot of levels, “Santa Baby” terrible, “The Christmas Song” by Alvin and the Chipmunks, “All I Want For Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey. Well, there are many others, and you’ve probably heard them all (I secretly like them all).

And while we all have a lot of those Christmas songs running through our playlist and in the background of malls and movies, perhaps we don’t think enough about the inspired Christmas songs. That is, those songs that we read in the Bible. We have been looking at them, beginning last week and now again this week, these songs in the Gospel of Luke.

Now, it’s doubtful that they came out of the mouth of Mary or Zechariah immediately as a song, but they have the look and the feel of music, of poetry, and they have often been called songs and they have often been put to music. They are known by their Latin names often, simply the first words of the song in the Latin Vulgate, and so Mary’s song as we saw last week is sometimes called The Magnificat. This Sunday morning, the song of Zechariah is called The Benedictus, “blessing.” Come hear what we can learn from Zechariah’s song.

Just a few reminders:

  • Use the “QR” code at the Oak to let us know which service and how many seats you need for our Christmas Eve services (also ages for childcare). Invite people!

  • The annual “Oakwood Cares” offering is Sunday, December 15th.  Use the provided “Oakwood Cares” offering envelope and place in one of the giving stations or go to “Give” at www.oakwoodcc.org and use the “Fund” drop down box to select “Oakwood Cares”.  Our goal is $20,000.  Let’s keep being generous and helping people in our community.

Hope to see you Sunday!

God Bless,
P.D. (Psalm 139)