Open Arms Church will hold its popular annual Christmas Eve’s Eve Service on Monday at Bradford Area High School.
The service, with doors opening at 6 p.m. and the event kicking off at 7 p.m. at 81 Interstate Parkway, will combine music, dance, theatrical performance and an inspirational discussion in an effort to remind the community of the reason for the season, said Pastor Mike McAvoy.
“As we celebrate Christmas, we’re not only reminded to be more loving, giving, and relationally oriented in life, but that a light of hope, wholeness, peace, and salvation has entered the darkness of our very broken world,” McAvoy said. “We especially invite the hurting, the broken, the confused, the struggling, the addict, the wounded, the skeptic, the unbelieving, the outcast, because we want everyone to know that Christmas means that no matter who you are, where you’ve been, what you’ve done, or what’s been done to you Jesus loves you, came for you, and can change your life.”
Open Arms began hosting the Eve’s Eve event 16 years ago, and according to McAvoy, it quickly grew from a single service attended by more than 100 people into an annual tradition attended by more than 300 members of the community over two services. In 2017, the event was moved to the auditorium at Bradford Area High School to make room for the increasing number of attendees. McAvoy said that the 2018 service was attended by more than 600 people, and even more are expected this year.
This year’s service is also significant in another way: It will be McAvoy’s final Eve’s Eve as pastor of Open Arms.
“It has been my great privilege to serve our region,” McAvoy said. “I’m especially excited to share this last Christmas with our church and regional family, and I want to wish a very Merry Christmas from the McAvoy family and Open Arms Church to our area.”
The church will provide a free bus service to those wishing to attend at the following times and locations: Togi’s Sub Station, 402 E Main St., 6:00 p.m.; Save-a-Lot, 75 Foreman St., 6:05 p.m.; Tops entrance, 150 E Main St., 6:10 p.m.; Marilyn Horne Hall, Marilyn Horne Way, 6:15 p.m.; and the bus stop at Barbour Street public housing, near the VFW Bradford Post 212, 6:20 p.m.
For more information about the service, see http://christmaseveseve.com
