Christmas Eve @ the Barn

I serve a church that meets in a barn. Seriously. Actually, for full disclosure, The Hills Church meets in a barn for about half of the year. The other half of the year (the warmer months), we meet outside on most Sunday mornings. I’m not kidding. We have no building. We don’t even have a “permanent location” outside of a county owned park (if you’re in the Pittsburgh area — South Park).

To describe how this came to be and why we’ve opted to maintain this posture would distract from the purpose of this post — and would make for a great post of its own. Suffice it say, for this post’s purposes, what we originally considered a potentially fatal complication caused by the Covid pandemic, has become a cornerstone our congregation’s identity and a strength leading to new found growth.

Last night, we celebrated another Christmas Eve in the barn with our annual candlelight service. I love candlelight Christmas Eve services, but there’s something particularly special about a candlelight service in an old barn. It was a beautiful service of scripture reading, worship, prayer, communion, and a short reflection on “the greatest gift.” The video of the entire service is below, if you’d be interested in taking a peak.

Merry Christmas, friends!