Bulletin for December 5, 2010
The group traveling to Charlotte, NC to work on Operation Christmas shoeboxes will be leaving today immediately following church service. Keep the group in prayer as they leave for this mission.
All the tags for the Rotary Christmas Project have been taken from the tree. The gifts need to be to Jim & Shelby by Wednesday, December 8th. They will then sort them and deliver them to the packing site where they will be prepared for distribution. The gifts can be brought to the church or their home. Kelsey Perando and Mac Rush have volunteered to help with the delivers beginning 9:00 AM on Saturday, December 11th from St. Peter's Social Hall, Oakland. Anyone else interested in deliveries please let them know. A special to all who helped support this special project to help local families.
As you are sending your Christmas cards, please include one to Brett Fratz. He would appreciate encouraging words not only at Christmas but at any time. His address is:
Brett W. Fratz #365754
R.C.I.
18701 Roxbury Road
Hagerstown, MD 21746
Please note that the Christmas Program has been changed from Dec. 18th to Dec. 19th at 7pm.
December calendar:
December 8th & 15th – Bible Study at 7pm
December 12th – David Winters from Mt. Top Youth for Christ will be doing a short presentation during regular church service.
December 19th – Christmas Program at 7pm.
December 29th - Secret Sister dinner at 6:30.|
Today is the second Sunday of the Advent season. So what has our society done with Advent? It has turned it into the shopping days before Christmas. As if we weren’t already distracted enough from the things of God, now it’s time to totally drown out the still, small, voice with the “fa-la-la-la-la” of Christmas carols. Between the frenzy at the mall and the party at the office, it is easy to get anesthetized, numbed to the true reason for the season. The Puritans recognized the ways that holiday merriment distracted people from the true meaning of Christ’s birth. Their solution was to completely ban the holiday and its associated festivities. Others decided the approach was not to ban it but to use it. In the preoccupation with buying Christmas gifts for all of our loved ones, do we remember that He has bestowed upon us a vast array of spiritual gifts (1 Cor 1: 3-9) designed to ready us for his coming? Wouldn’t it be great if this year’s Christmas list was filled with gifts that would help people unpack God’s spiritual gifts that would actually have something to do with Jesus ? And how about if we disciplined ourselves to precede every visit to the shopping mall with a visit to the Blessed Savior? And maybe as we deck the halls, we should devote at least equal attention to clothing ourselves with the virtues that will please Him even more than the holly and the ivy.