Gene Lesesne (left) with Officer Karen Nix and DuBose Blakeney.

Preparations for this year’s Lessons and Carols service, which falls annually on the Third Sunday in Advent, began months ago when Pat Gould, the St. Philip’s Choir director; Jo Hethcox, director of the Cherub, St. Nicholas, Canterbury, and St. David Choirs; and Andrea White, the St. Cecilia Choir director, began choosing the anthems their choristers would be singing to drive home the message of our salvation that would be told through the nine lessons.

The Friday before the service, the Flower Guild led other members of the ECW (Every Church Woman), along with a crowd of volunteers, in “greening” the church, which for some meant getting several feet above their comfort zone as wreaths were hung above gates and lights and ornaments were draped about the 12-feet-tall tree in the narthex.  

The service once again drew a crowd that packed the pews, filled the extra chairs lining the aisles, and even had people standing in the balconies. Afterwards, much of that crowd reconvened for the Wassail Bowl reception in the Parish Hall, which St. Philippians and visitors have been blessed with year after year thanks to Gene Lesesne and his family and friends. The cardiac event that Gene endured last month––and God saw fit to pull him through by surrounding him with the right people at the right time––didn’t stop him and his crew from heading the reception up again this year. They loaded the tables in the Parish Hall with meatballs, baked brie, egg rolls, fruit, the ever-popular cookie cake, and more, plus wassail (hot mulled cider), of course, and kept the platters stocked as more and more people filled their plates.

The Third Sunday in Advent is also the day when the Compassion Committee sets out all the poinsettias they’ve put together for those on our prayer list, those who have lost a loved one, and those who need to know we are thinking of them. St. Philippians responded to the call for help getting the plants delivered, and well before the activity in the Parish Hall died down, all plants had been picked up. 

Thank you to the many, many hands and minds that labored in the months, weeks, and hours leading up to this very special day in the life of our parish, and to those laboring the day of. 

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. ––Ephesians 2:10