Bagong UNIDA@Baclaran Unida Church: PASKO NA NAMANG MULI!

Friday, December 12, 2008

PASKO NA NAMANG MULI!

We live in a jaded world. We use to celebrate Christmas with much more ardor. But now the ardor has gone. Yes, by December there are so many activities and to-do’s but most of them are downright commercial and eerily superficial. What is missing is the meaning of Christmas.

I grew up in a fishing village that was Baclaran when people were so few that everybody knew each other by name, pet-name, or teasing-name like talakitok, kandule, patola, or dat-dat. And oh how they celebrate Christmas!

My generation and the generation before me ANTICIPATED Christmas. As soon as the “ber” months began the simple people of Baclaran girded for the big event in December. Christmas carols were already heard and people were more “mabait” to each other than usual. It was a three-month anticipation plus a month-long celebration.

But now we have become so jaded that we have reduced it to a week-long celebration plus a month-long commercial anticipation. What an insult to the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings whose birthday we are waiting to celebrate.

And please pray tell me one thing: why is it that we, Christians, celebrate Christmas in full worship services on the eve or the night before the birth of the Son of God? And does not worship or celebrate on the day of His birth?

I find it a blessing that I grew up in a Church that offers Thanksgiving Worship to God on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas Day. At Baclaran Unida Church we worship on December 25.

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IGLESIA EVANGELICA UNIDA DE CRISTO

VISION STATEMENT
A serving and caring church faithfully proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour and commissioning every believer to make disciples of all nations.

MISSION STATEMENT
Glorify God by equipping the church in reaching and serving people with the Love of Jesus Christ by the Power of the Holy Spirit.

UNIDA CHURCH has a distinctive name and a place in the history of the Philippines. It followed the prophetic observation in 1903 by Rev. John Bancropt Devins “that Filipino Protestants will be self-supporting”: (Wikipedia Encyclopedia) “In 1932, six of the smaller indigenous denominations formed the Iglesia Evangelica Unida de Cristo.”

UNIDA dared to declare economic independence by turning down American dollars to become self-supporting. It was hard going for them because their pastors did not receive anything from the church and the members built churches on their own without aid from the Americans. But with so much faith in God’s provisions they did. Unida is now 77 years old and going strong.

Jose Rizal dreamed of an economically independent Philippines but that remained a dream. For the country, that is. But for 77 years Unida was free from foreign intervention because they were economically independent.

The IGLESIA EVANGELICA UNIDA DE CRISTO or UNIDA CHURCH, the truly Filipino Protestant Church, was born on January 3, 1932 but the seeds that gave birth to it were sown at the turn of the century. It was preceded by the birth pangs of an independent Filipino Nation and emboldened by the coming to the Philippines of Protestantism and consequently the right to read and own a BIBLE. (For more please click for older post "UNIDA: A TRULY FILIPINO PROTESTANT CHURCH"