Christmas Program Follow Up

Thank you kids, you all did such a wonderful job.

You know here at Friendship Church, we love having our kids involved in Christmas programs like this, but it is not just about the enjoyment of seeing them perform. For us it is about much more than that. These programs are some of their first opportunities that these kids have to declare the good news of Jesus Christ. These kids are not just making us laugh, giggle or ooh and aghhh…they are serving us as evangelists who are telling of the good news of Jesus.

Sometimes it is easy to get so lost in a song that we miss the depth of the words so I want to share with you the first words of that last song that they sang. The song says:

A night to remember that changed me forever, When I asked the Savior to live in my heart.

The love of the Father can change you forever, The moment that Jesus is born in your heart

A night to remember, a night you will treasure, When Jesus Messiah steps into your world

The love of the Father was born in a manger, and now God is with us, the light of the world

What a powerful declaration of the Good News of Jesus Christ, and what a great story line to tell us about it, especially right now. I don’t think we could find a more appropriate story than an “Out-Of-The-Box Christmas” for the year 2020. We could describe so much of our lives this past year as “Out-Of-The-Box”. Amen! There have been so many unexpected things and we have found ourselves looking at our lives as if someone must delivered me the wrong box, and yet we still have to decide what we are going to do with what has been delivered to us.

You see, in the midst of everything that has happened this past year, we can look at our Christmas Celebration this year and just throw up our hands like Mrs Strickland was ready to do and give up seeing it all as hopeless, or...we can see things as the kids in the story did…that the privilege and responsibility of telling the story of Jesus is so important that should can keep after it even when things are not going how we expected them to go. And maybe, just maybe…we will be drawn even closer to the meaning of Christmas this year than ever before.

May we all hear from “Lily” when she says: “Mrs Strickland, you’ll change your mind when you see the baby Jesus…This is the best part.”

May Jesus be the best part of your “Out of the box Christmas this year”.

In a moment I am going to lead us in prayer, but before I do I just wanted to make sure you all know that you are invited to join with for a brunch immediately following, and if you don’t have a church home then we would love to have you join us again next week at 9:30 for service. We won’t have a brunch, but we do follow up each service with a time of fellowship and learning in our Table talk groups and in Sunday School for the kids. If you have any questions then feel free to connect with me after the service.

Let’s pray and enjoy that which is smelling so good right now.