Christmas Preparations

Wrapping the gifts and getting the feast ready is a part of celebrating Christmas. We get so wrapped up in the all the frills of the season that we often put the real reason of Christmas on hold or forget about it all together. We can also get caught up in all the giving and being nicer and kinder to our fellow man and still miss out on the real reason. Even remembering the story of the Christ child in the manger is not enough if we do not remember why He came in the first place. When Christ was born, he came for the reason of dying. Christmas day means nothing without the death of Jesus on Good Friday and His resurrection on Easter Sunday. We do not celebrate those for a couple of months but let that not be a reason for not looking ahead and being thankful for the reason he came. To redeem us all from sin. Praise be to God.

Winter Soltice

The Winter Solstice will arrive at

Winter Solstice 2007: Dec 22, 6:08 am Universal Time

Be sure to adjust for your time zone:
EST: Dec 22, 1:08 am
CST: Dec 22, 12:08 am
MST: Dec 21, 11:08 pm
PST: Dec 21, 10:08 pm

You may be wondering why I am pointing this out in my Christian oriented blog. Solstice is usually either seen as a pagan holiday or an astronomical event. It is seen to be the first day of winter. I also see it as an interesting time to celebrate the birth of Christ. That during this time of darkness (at least for the northern hemisphere) the light of the world came into the world. The darkness is that more banished by His light. This imagery is pointed out to me by the candlelight service on Christmas Eve. It is really a strong and powerful thing to be in nothing but candlelight to celebrate the Savior's birth. We are in spiritual darkness. Christ is the light of our lives. It is neat to watch the candle light in the service going out from the Christ candle and going to all the candles in the congregation. Christ is the source of all light and we are to tell and spread that light. What a wonderful parallel between worship service and reality.

This play between light and dark comes back over Easter weekend. The Good Friday service gets slowly darken until totally dark at the end. The pascal light is taken out and brought back in to emphasize that Christ has died and has risen from the dead. At the Easter Vigil especially, the opposite happens. The service starts in darkness. The Christ Candle is the only light. The congregations candles are lit from there. During the service it slowly lightens until there is a explosion of light at the gospel reading. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed!

I just enjoy this wonderful imagery so much.

God Bless!

Memoware.Com

Memoware.com was brought to my attention just recently. Not only there is secular books for your PDA to read but also religious. There is scripture as well as Christian authors. It is another neat way that technology aids with life. It sometimes hinders more than helps but this is one case of being able to carry the info you need with you. Not going to add much more. Check out the site.

Winter Weather

We got a foot of show last night and church was canceled today. Not a surprise when there were snow emergencies being declared. Felt sorry for the Sunday school kids. The Christmas program was suppose to be today. If I heard right, they were planning of delaying it a week if they had to cancel out. Some of the more mundane problems with trying to have regular worship. Things interfere. At least there are plenty of option for devotions at home so the day can still be set aside for God. Feels a little odd when all you do is listen to the Lutheran Hour at home and then go out to dig your driveway out.You do what you can do as you can do and God's mercy and grace is what truly saves. Our salvation depends on Christ and not if we are in church every single Sunday. However, we are still called to worship in a community. At least, for this week, we had the at home option. God will provide for next Sunday.

Lutheran Service Book

Today was the first Sunday that we used LSB at our church. It's been a long time coming and we are not done yet. I almost thought we were not going to get it done today. On Wednesday, it was pointed out that the embossing with the church name on the hymnal were crooked. There was one that was a little out. The others looked crooked because of the way the design of the cover looked. I am grateful that it was pointed out but the journey of getting the hymnals has been such a long trip of making sure we did it right. We did not want the repeat of Lutheran Worship fiasco. Lutheran Worship is a good hymnal but a lot of the way it was put together and presented could have been done so much better. I truly think that taught us what not to do when presenting a new hymnal.


The service went well today. There is an adjustment that needs to done but I think it will be done relatively easy. One of the issues is that the congregation is use to the service being printed out in the bulletin. Now we are using the hymnal and we are not use to the layout. The service also has some minor variants. We need an insert to help guide people so they can get up to speed on the new hymnal. God provides. At least the proposing phase is done and the implementing phase has begun.

Bible Quiz

You know the Bible 100%!

Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
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Tired and dried out down to the soul

I think we all been here. Burned out by any other name is just as wearing. It can also happen in our faith life. Whether it is just the same old routine or just been doing much for too long, our faith walk can also get old and wearing. I think this is the most dangerous place to get burned out. Not only is your faith at stake but our faith is the rock on which our life stands. Sometimes it is just a matter of getting away for a while or changing your routine. It is definately is a time for more prayer and reliance on God. He is the perfecter and author of our faith. That's hard to remember. It's hard to do when most of us think everything depends on us personally. If something is going wrong, it either is my fault or my problem to fix. That doequitets help in a lot of cases but when it comes to faith, it is time to hand it over to God to handle. Work like it depends on you, pray like it depends on God. I don't know if that phrase is entirely right but it rings at least close. Do your best and realize that so much is beyond us and is in God's hands. Even if it is just taking 5 minutes of quiet time for prayer.