Preparations for Christmas

We are in the midst of preparations for Christmas with friends and family. The big priority the next couple days is making sure our house is ready for our staff and board Christmas party on Friday night. We are looking forward to joyful times with friends and co-workers. Then, getting gifts mailed to Cathy’s family in Colorado to get there on time for Christmas and to Nate and Lisa in New York. Not to forget a special birthday dinner on Tuesday for my Dad’s 77th birthday. Good times with four generations of family. Then, we will be serving on Wednesday night at Port in a Storm as we care for the homeless on these stormy winter nights.

Christmas Eve is going to be incredible as we welcome the Annie Moses Band as our special guests at 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. It will be a musical and spiritual experience that will be remembered all year.

This is going to be the first Christmas that one of our kids will not be with us. Nate and Lisa have a busy work schedule surrounding Christmas and it simply doesn’t work for them to make the trip west. It’s been 29 straight years of having our whole family together. Now we will have to make it happen through Skype. This is when you realize the true joys and meaning of Christmas are all about relationships. Our relationship with Jesus is a miraculous blessing and then the love He gives us for others is a deep well of meaning.

I’m looking forward to Sunday as we focus our attention on the New Beginnings made possible through the gift of Jesus coming to earth. He makes all things new!

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here.

Pastor Rick