Nativity Tidings
Newsletter of Church of the Nativity, Sarasota
January, 2003

Membership Classes Begin

Starting Tuesday, February 7, we begin classes for those seeking membership and confirmation in the Episcopal church. These classes are open to both adults and children. Following this seven-week course, students will "graduate" at the Deanery confirmation held here at Nativity on February 25. A reception will follow where we will officially welcome our new church members.

In January, we were once again visited in the night by robbers. They broke into the locked shed in the garden, absconding only with a five-gallon gasoline can. The damage to the door was more costly than what they stole. This followed our summer robbery where persons unknown stole a newly planted tree from our lot.

And a year ago, another group entered Nativity in the dark of night.

On Christmas eve of 2001, our new church building was just an empty shell. We were still worshipping across the street thanks to the generosity of Northminster church. Though we would have loved to celebrate our Lord’s nativity in our own building, with construction still ongoing and no occupancy permit from the county, we instead held Christmas eve services at Northminister.

But on that Christmas Eve a year ago, several parishioners snuck out between the two services and in the dark of night entered the empty church.

Together in that church building-yet-to-be-born, they prayed and joined their voices in song to celebrate the coming of the King. They hid their flickering candles, lest they draw the attention of any passing police and struggled not to drip wax on the unfinished floors and the tiles about to be laid.

Their small group started at the door and processed singing to what would be the altar area, and then to the choir section. Their voices echoed in the empty building and their candlelight cast strange shadows amid the scaffolds and construction equipment. Yet in that cold, empty church, they knew that "the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight."