The word “advent” means coming. It is used by churches around the world to celebrate the four Sundays before Christmas…the Advent season. My goal is to assist our church family in the desire to keep Christ as the central part of the Christmas season. It is very easy to get overwhelmed with the magnitude of the world’s celebration of Christmas. Some stores start before Halloween to make sure they take full advantage of the Christmas spending splurge. Ok, all that aside, it is my goal to lead our church family to keep focused on the reason for the season.
We start with worship. As always, our worship is centered on God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We include the beautiful seasonal songs that celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus. It is a story worth remembering and celebrating. The Word of God has been the focus of our sermon series: Advent: The Whole Story. We will finish the series on Christmas Eve as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper and baptism! The birth of the babe in Bethlehem resulted in our rebirth! From the Cradle to the Cross until He returns, we see the whole story of the advent of Christ. To God be the glory.
The third part of keeping Christ in Christmas is the outward focus of our mission effort. So far, you have given 113 packs of diapers (3,427 individual diapers!) for the Lowcountry Pregnancy Center; 76 pop up hampers for the Florence Crittenton Home for unwed mothers; 196 jars of jelly for James Island Outreach (that represents sending love to 196 families); and 128 pairs of pajamas and 10 pairs of slippers for the Lowcountry Orphan Relief. That is Christmas at its finest! Thank you for being so willing to give love to our community. This is a better place to live because you reach out!
See you Christmas Sunday, good Lord willing.
Pastor Tom
Have you looked at your calendar lately?
I don’t mean the picture of the Kittens…I mean the dates? This is one of those years where Christmas Eve, Saturday December 24 and Christmas Day, Sunday December 25 present an interesting challenge!
Christmas Eve, Saturday night, not a problem…we got it. It often surprises people to know our Christmas Eve service is often our largest attended service of the year. Sometimes it is even larger than our packed Easter Sunday. No wonder, it is traditionally a lovely service of Christmas Carols, Communion and Candlelight. We read the Christmas stories and sing some of our favorite Christmas hymns and usually we celebrate a baptism by candlelight. This year we have three scheduled to be baptized. We do have a lot more seats available since our Chinese Church outgrew our facilities and Luz Y Verdad have grown to being able to have their own services. Of course they are all welcomed to come back…but isn’t it great they are doing so well?
Christmas Day is on Sunday. I mean what could be more appropriate than celebrating Christmas on a Sunday? But is does present a challenge. I suspect that many churches will just not have Sunday worship services. We have decided that we will meet for Christmas Sunday worship at 11:00. We will not have our Sunday morning Connection Groups that meet at 9:45. We are hoping this gives everyone time to enjoy a relaxed Christmas morning and still make it to Christmas Sunday Worship at 11:00. We will start at 11 and end at 12…he says with all the faith in the world. There will be a special children’s time during the service, we will sing great Christmas hymns and have a few special treats!
Back to back worship services will be a little different for us…but it will be inspiring. What a great way to set the pace for your Christmas Celebration. It will be a little different, but different is not always bad…it’s just different.
Join us Wednesday, December 21 for our Annual Evening of Christmas Caroling. It is always fun!
See you Sunday, good Lord willing.
Pastor Tom
Excuse me for sounding like a broken record, but I love Christmas time. It is a great time, not the only time, but a great time for the followers of Jesus to stand strong about the reason for the season. It is very easy to drift into a secular mind-set about Santa and the consumerism mentality of Christmas. So, as we say on so many occasions: anyone can curse the darkness, let’s light a candle! In this case, it is a Christmas candle or an Advent candle so to speak.
The entire reason for the Advent emphasis at JIBC is to call our attention to the stronger messages of Christmas. Let’s focus on Christ coming and the reason; let’s renew our emphasis on worship and Bible Study; let’s ride the wave of Christmas cheer and reach out to help those in need; let’s sing songs of faith and songs of joy! Sorry, you are not going to get a bah humbug from me. I love Christmas. I love Christmas joy, songs, charity, lights, Advent, musicals…I love the Christmas time. As I have said, about the only thing I don’t like about Christmas is seeing people go in debt to buy what they cannot afford or to bust a budget that is already strained. There are a lot of ways to show some Christmas love that does not cost you a penny! OK, one other thing I don’t like about Christmas…those who take it upon themselves to be an unofficially elected Grinch. The song lyrics go like this: “Every party has a pooper that’s why I invited you!” Why invite the Grinch…unless he needs Jesus and the joy of Jesus in his heart! OK, I even like inviting the Grinch!
So why don’t we do this all year long? WE DO. We worship the Prince of Peace all year long; we do acts of kindness and charity all year long; we give to support missions all year long! That is one of the things I love most about JIBC…you are the hands and feet of Jesus all year long. You don’t just come to church, you are the church. You take the salt out of the shaker, the believers out of the building, all year long. You go to the homeless; feed the widows; bless the orphans; support cross cultural ministry; send out workers into the high schools; serve the poor; heal the sick; etc, etc. YOU DO THIS ALL YEAR LONG! I love His church known as James Island Baptist.
No bah humbug from me. If you can, bring a jar of jelly, a pair of p.j.s, some diapers or a pop up hamper to show a little love to our community.
Pastor Tom
