Christmas Reset

Hi Five Oakers, Christmas services start on Sunday afternoon and there are a few things I don't want you to miss:

Christmas Services

Songs of Christmas, a break from the rush and stress, time to focus and to worship, a message from God’s Word on celebrating God’s presence, Emmanuel.

Links I Like

A middle school boys passes up a chance to score. Another one cries on film without shame. It's about a gift to a boy and to family.  And about the joy of giving.

http://youtu.be/0Ejh_hb15Fc

One More Thing

From a limited perspective, I think there are two or three small windows of time when Christmas feels “right”—when you are a child, when you have small children (it goes south the older they get) and when you have small grandchildren. Some people get to experience all three windows. Some people experience none of these times times when things feel right. These really are very small windows of time. I can see that now since, for the first time, neither one of our kids will be home for Christmas. But so many of our expectations and disappoints in this season revolve around trying to recapture those times when things felt right or around feeling cheated for not getting to experience them.

But what if this Christmas was more than about things feeling “right” in that limited sense. What if we set our minds and hearts on celebrating “God with us.” Frankly, it’s hard to do when we’re living in one of those windows. But as soon as we’re out of it, we can spend all your energies trying to recapture them, hoping our middle school son will squeal with delight again on Christmas morning (good luck on that one) or we can seek something deeper. “God with us” will never feel like a childhood Christmas morning filled with presents around a tree (or the anticipation of those presents). It's different. We have to adjust our expectations. And we even have to adjust some of our rituals and traditions. But celebrating God with us is a window of time that will never pass away or disappoint.

Blessings to you all, Pastor Henry

10 Tweets

Here's Tim Bubar’s sermon from last weekend in 10 tweets: "Hope for Change," (Exodus 34)

1// Tiny people sometimes get put in Easter bunny costumes and marched around the school.

2// When we want desperately to change, but see ourselves making the same mistakes, it's hard to have hope for change.

3// God doesn't just tell us who he is (in his words to Moses), he shows us who he is (in how he has related to Israel and the world).

4// You won't find hope for change in you.  Willpower is a muscle that gets fatigued and gives out.  Israel's story shows this, and your story shows this.

5// Moses understood that they needed God's presence not in spite of their rebellious heart, but because of it.

6// You won't find hope for change in new circumstances.

7// God is merciful, gracious, loving, and faithful.  He's also just:  he forgives sin and he punishes every sin.

8// You don't have to clean yourself up.  God knew all of your past, present, and future sins when he paid the price for them.

9// You don't have to beat yourself up.  There's a difference between Godly sorrow for our sin and trying to pay a price that's already been paid.

10// You don't have to remain unchanged.  But God's work in you will take a lifetime - literally a lifetime.  Put your hope in who he says he is and has shown himself to be.