Christmas Eve Candlelight Worship

December 24 at 4:30pm and 10:30pm, in person or online.
​The Candlelight Christmas Eve worship service is a beloved tradition at Fairmount Avenue UMC, centering our hearts and minds.  With a special message for children in the early service, both services will feature the singing of Night of Silence/Silent Night by candlelight.  Enjoy a Christmas organ recital a half hour before each service.

Children's Christmas Program

December 11 during 10:30am Sunday worship.
Our children will lead us in worship, helping us to embrace the wonder of the Christmas Story.  Join in worship in person or online to experience the story of Jesus’ birth from the perspective of our kids.

Service of Hope and Healing

December 11 at 6:00pm in the sanctuary.
​If you are holding grief, loss, anxiety, tension, or darkness this season, you are not alone.  In this special service, we acknowledge the heaviness we hold and look ahead to the light of Christmas.

Celebration of Music

December 18 during 10:30am Sunday worship.
​Join us for a festive morning of seasonal music with special presentations from each of our choirs throughout the service.

Christmas Morning Worship

​Christmas is on a Sunday this year!
Come to church after the presents have been unwrapped for a more relaxed, family friendly Sunday service.  Bring cookies to share in fellowship, and gifts of hats and mittens for Project Home and Simpson Shelter.  Take a family Christmas picture in church, and celebrate the birth of the Christ together in worship.  This informal morning of worship is a beautiful way to focus on the greatest gift God has ever given, the love of Jesus.  Christmas pajamas welcome!

Advent Worship Series: Homebirth

Continuing with our theme of “home,” we will be reflecting on “homebirth” this Advent.  Using the story of waiting for the birth of the Christ, we will consider what it is we are “birthing” in our lives, in our homes, in our church, and in our community.
We all have experience with birth, because we have all been born.  We have known people to give birth.  We have welcomed newborn babies into our families, churches, and lives.  Birth is a process that is mysterious as much as it is natural.  A process that every animal has known since the beginning of time.  Bodies creating new bodies, emerging life, one from another into the hands, arms, and love of families and communities. 
Birthing is a process revered, feared, and full of faith.  We know that Mary did not have doctors, modern medicine, or a sterile hospital to birth her first son.  But she did have a husband, a barn, likely a midwife, and the ancient knowing within her own body.  Mary’s birth was in fact, by today’s standards, a “homebirth.”  Welcoming the Christ child, the Prince of Peace into the world among helping hands only to have him birthed and then resting with his parents in their makeshift bed.
Birthing is about creation and life. Home is about safety, security, comfort, care, and love.  As we reflect on this idea of “homebirth” this Advent, we will be reminded of how we are called to birth Christ into our own lives, homes, churches, and communities… welcoming Christ into the world so that we might experience the mystery of birth with the natural comfort of home. 
While there will not be a birthing pool in the sanctuary (as some have joked), we will consider the space and place where Jesus was born.  We will be inspired by the stories of revelation in ordinary places.  And will be invited to embrace new life.
Together we will wait and listen with the anticipation of birth, welcoming Christ into our hopes, dreams, plans, celebrations, and faith practice.  Cultivating an experience of “homebirth” within our own souls.

Advent Sunday Worship Recordings