Celebration 2005

For the past number of months, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada has been working on an event called “Celebration 2005.” The purpose, according to their publicity material, is to “help unleash the church in 2005.” And to do that, they say, “your church decides what activity best suits your community – a community service, a picnic, a drama, a festival or something else.”

The plan is that churches particularly celebrate between May 21 and June 12, and then, on June 12, are linked live via satellite to “celebrate the outpouring of God’s love as demonstrated in and through the church.” Although this has been promoted by our Canadian Conference offices, not many churches have chosen to officially participate. (If your church is taking part, please write and tell us about your event.)

Celebration needs to be part of church life. Jesus exemplified this in His years of ministry – the meals He had with Simon, the wedding of Cana, and other times. He always used these times to build relationships.

We too could learn to celebrate more as a church, not in a frivolous, light-hearted way (although there is likely room for that on occasion as well), but to mark special occasions in the life of the church, the people who attend or the community at large. Many of the times we do celebrate have become formulaic – Easter bread for Easter Sunday morning breakfast, a weekend Thanksgiving/missions festival, a Christmas dinner for the seniors.

Is there a way we could be more spontaneous about this? Or is that the privilege of the smaller church rather than of the one with more than 200 members? Do our communities know when we are celebrating or what we are celebrating? Are they curious? Do they want to join in? Do we use celebrations to build relationships outside our usual church family?

I get to see bulletins from many of our churches. It’s interesting to see the celebrations that each church plans: “fellowship group friendship banquet,” “Board of Church Extension celebration banquet,” “Come celebrate the risen Lord.” These and similar plans indicate that some churches do celebrate, but perhaps more could be done, so that people will say, with the early church scholar Tertullian, “See how they love one another.”

And, of course, the celebrating we do here is only a foreshadowing of what is coming when we will be part of the celebration at the marriage supper of the Lamb: “Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come . . . Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” (Revelation 19:7,9).