Grace to you and peace, from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ!  As we settle in with our new music director, Tina Dreisbach, and continue to flesh out the ways we will provide worship music, we welcome Clair Maxwell back to the organ today and also look forward to hearing from our choir.  Our thanks to Tina and to her husband Paul for their contributions to our Sunday worship!  

Our Gospel reading today does not follow the lectionary, which would have us reading about Jesus’ baptism.  Rather, it continues the story that follows his birth and the adoration of the Magi.  In the few verses that attend to the family’s departure from Bethlehem, we hear a familiar story, though perhaps more recent than we may have thought.  As we worship together this week, we are reminded to keep close in our hearts those who are forced to leave their homes and what is our faithful responsibility to them.  

Before then, I look forward to seeing many of you at my home this evening for fun, food, and total frivolity with our potluck and yankee swap!  See you soon!  

Blessings and peace, Lisa

Grace to you and peace, from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ!  Beginning a new year together in worship is a delightful way to look back at what is good and to plan for a glorious future.  We do that in our celebration of Communion tomorrow morning, with thanks to our deacons and worship team helpers, and I invite those of you at home to prepare your own bread and cup in order to partake with us.  Our scripture lessons ask us to remember those who sought a new king in an era of disillusionment and fear, and also invite us to consider where we might go to seek a better way and to know assurance.  In the story of the wise seekers from the East who honored an infant child and his mother and who chose to disobey an immoral ruler, Herod, we know the lengths to which the faithful will go in response to God’s call in their lives.  As we start the new year together, may we be strengthened in our own faithful living. 

Blessings and peace, Lisa

Grace to you and peace, from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ!  In the warm days that follow Christmas (warm hearts, anyway!), I am very often moved to remember the beautiful poem of Howard Thurman, “The Work of Christmas.”  As we look toward our worship together tomorrow, which will include a carol sing in response to scripture, we may also consider his words. 

Blessings and peace, Lisa

     “The Work of Christmas,” by Howard Thurman (renowned Baptist minister, theologian and Civil Rights activist)

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among others,
To make music in the heart. 

Grace to you and peace, from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ!  Today’s early eVisitor will be brief as we all celebrate Christmas with family and friends.  You will find attached the Zoom information and Worship at Home bulletin for tonight’s service.  For those of you worshipping in person, you may want to consider arriving early for the service.  It officially begins at 7:00 p.m., but our brass choir will begin at 6:50, while people are entering.  I look forward to seeing everyone for this service in celebration of Christ’s birth!

Just a couple of other announcements:  Next Sunday’s service, on the 29th, will include a Christmas Carol “sing” with George Emlen, who will be accompanying all of the service’s hymns, as well.  Christmas, of course, lasts through Epiphany, so that we can indeed enjoy the twelve days of Christmas, and not only in the familiar song! 
Please also remember to mark your calendars for our second annual holiday party at my house.  This will be on Saturday, January 11th, beginning at 5:30.  Each person should bring a wrapped gift to share in our Yankee Swap (the basis of much hilarity) and we will enjoy a potluck supper, as well.  More details next week!

Blessings and peace, Lisa

Grace to you and peace, from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ!  Today marks the longest night of the year, and it can be a difficult time for those who mourn or who are troubled by any number of things.  In God we have hope and in Jesus, our hope and our light, our God comes to us in human form.  So, our services this weekend name this breadth of emotion as we both honor grief and sing out joy.  So, you will find attached bulletins for both services, as well as the text of carols that will make up part of our Christmas pageant tomorrow morning.  All are welcome to participate in this  recollection of the story of Jesus birth, made wild by its spontaneous nature.  
The Zoom link for our Longest Night/ Blue Christmas Service is here, with Meeting ID: 823 2201 7438 and Passcode: 152903. Its Worship for Home bulletin can be found here.

Blessings and peace, Lisa

Grace to you and peace, from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ!  Light in the darkness, rescue from fear, rescue from imprisonment, shame, or hunger . . . all these things are part of our hopeful prayers this season.  We pray and act in faith that God will respond, and we may learn that the response involves our participation.  In our continuing interaction with John the Baptist this week, we learn that our response to God’s word to us is very straightforward.  We are expected to act in such a way that we are making the way for Jesus clear and steady through our actions of justice and generosity.  Jesus spells out for his followers and us an answer to their pointed question: “What, then, shall we do!?” Might it steer our Advent practice this year?  What does it mean to live faithfully in response to God’s Word in our lives?  Does it make a difference?  Let’s see what we think together! 

Blessings and peace, Lisa