Praise God, the wait is over! Christ is born and Christmas is over, but this Sunday, Tara Farrell brings a message asking us to continue to reflect on a final character from the nativity story – the lowly shepherds. We began Advent by asking, “What are you waiting for?”. Now, we ask ourselves the same question again – only this time we see how even the shepherds rejoiced exceedingly at the angel’s good news, and we ask ourselves – when it comes to worshipping and experiencing God – what are we waiting for?
Adolphe Adam composed the melody for O Holy Night in 1847. The music was originally written for a French poem entitled, ‘Minuit, chrétiens’ (Midnight, Christians). Eight years later, in 1855, John Sullivan Dwight translated the French poem into the well-known English lyrics we sing today. Join us at 6:30 p.m. this Christmas Eve as we will meditate on the central summons of this song, before Him lowly bend, celebrate the reasons to do so, and then light candles as we sing this, and other, Christ-exalting Christmas hymns!
Bulletin
When Joseph discovered that his betrothed wife, Mary, was with child, he quickly thought of two options. Later, in a more restful posture, God revealed a third way, God’s way. God is always willing to unveil His plan to those who resist the initial impulse to act without divine knowledge. In this message, we will learn how to wait attentively for God’s guidance as we anticipate the upcoming arrival of Jesus!
Have you ever made a plan that went entirely different than you expected? How do we respond when the things we want and expect out of life don’t happen? Or when the Lord calls us to something different than what we planned for ourselves? This second Sunday in Advent, Tara Farrell brings a message on the story of Mary, Mother of Jesus, and how God reached into her life and turned everything upside down. And more importantly, how Mary responded to His plan to redeem Israel and ultimately the entire world.
As we start the season of Advent, we move into a time of great anticipation, longing and waiting….and waiting…and waiting. In fact, before the birth of Jesus many in Israel were waiting desperately for their entire lives to see God send His promised Messiah and to see that Messiah bring about all that God had promised. Generation after generation, desperately longing and waiting for God. Those that stayed close with God celebrated when they simply saw the baby Messiah. Today, we can relate to Israel’s desperate waiting and longing for things to change, for something new to come, for a breakthrough.
Everyone needs encouragement. In this message, we receive personal encouragement from the last paragraph in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and learn how to better encourage others!
Jesus is working to see the whole church share the whole gospel with the whole world. Satan is working against this plan by trying to turn everyone in Christ’s church into spiritual weaklings. To see Christ’s plan prevail, Jesus is training us to receive His divine gifts, including the sword of the Spirit and prayer in the Spirit, so the world gets the Good News, God gets the glory, and we all, except Satan, get to be a part of it.
God created life. But sin created death. And the inevitability of death is troubling. We have a variety of ways of coping with this reality, of protecting our minds from fearing it. We deny the inevitability of death or rationalize it to try to lessen its burden. But none of these things actually prevent it or our fear of it. Only one thing can truly alleviate our fear of death: the assurance of salvation, of life after death. The assurance of salvation is a helmet that protects our minds from fear.
We are exhorted to hold up the shield of faith in all circumstances, to extinguish the arrows of the evil one. Just what are those arrows? Attacks come in many forms, including accusations, deceptions, distortions, distractions, false assurances, and temptations. How does faith in God act like a shield in these attacks? We can draw on the heroes of our faith and on Jesus himself to consider how we, too, might stand against and be empowered to overcome these attacks to produce lasting fruit in the Kingdom of God.