WS Chronicle

Joy to the world could be found Sunday afternoon at Galilee Missionary Baptist Church as the congregation celebrated the Christmas season with a program called “The Peace of Christmas.”

The church was packed.

The church’s Worship and Arts Ministry presented the approximately 90-minute program filled with shouting as well as singing, dancing and praising God.

Pastor Nathan E. Scovens and First Lady Wyvondalynn Scovens highlighted Advent during the program. Advent is the period beginning four Sundays before Christmas and observed by some Christians as a season of prayer and fasting. Two candles were lit at Galilee to represent the first and second Sundays of the season.

Pastor Scovens left a word for the audience, piggy backing on his message Sunday morning during 11 a.m. service.

“We declared on this morning Luke 1:37: With God, nothing is impossible,” Pastor Scovens said. He was able to give a praise report about a member who had passed out about a week ago and was put on a ventilator and in the intensive care unit but who showed up at the program Sunday.

“You might be going through, but it’s just a season,” he said.

One of the highlights of the program was when Deaconess Emma Smith read the Christmas story of Jesus’ birth to children, who gathered around her in the pulpit.

The Worship and Arts Ministry at Galilee consists of a worship team, choirs, liturgical dance, mime

and step divisions that are composed of people from young children to senior citizens. The divisions of the Worship and Arts Ministry gathered to perform for the last song in the program, “Perfect Peace.”

Willie Mason is the servant leader of the Worship and Arts Ministry.

“I am honored and blessed to worship with an awesome group of people,” he said at the end of the program.