Sunday School: 9:30 AM
Worship Service: 10:30 AM
Women’s Bible Study: Thursday 10:00 AM
Men’s Breakfast: Saturday 7:00 AM
Board Meeting, TOMORROW, AT 3:30, AT OUR CHURCH
Biblical wisdom not only means to prepare for the Lord's return, but it also means to store up supplies to occupy until He comes.
Please consider storing up some basics, like water, paper goods, canned goods, some dry goods, fuel and medications. The times we're in demand it.
Kate Hilton and Janet Gallup are inviting you to come and sing in a Christmas Choir and participate in the program. They ‘ll be rehearsing after church each Sunday.
5:00 pm at our church, FINGER FOOD POTLUCK
Movie starts at 6:00 pm….”The Christmas Candle”
SALVATION ARMY Needs Volunteers & BELL RINGERS!!
Please consider lending your help to the Salvation Army. They need “Advisory Board” members, who meet once a month and guide the Army’s community work and fund raising events. Also, needed are site workers, who organize and manage food and clothing resources.
It’s the Second Sunday of Advent so we hear the words of John the Baptizer, the voice of one crying in the desert, calling us to clean up the roadways and build a straight path for God’s coming. We are all familiar with the Baptizer. He’s some sort of cousin of Jesus. He’s a bit of a wild man; he lives in the wilderness wearing rough clothing and eating only what foods he can pick from desert plants and animals, “locusts and wild honey” is the way the evangelists put it. This year we hear Luke’s version of John’s story.
Luke relates a tale of Jesus angrily denouncing the leadership in the towns of Galilee who refused to listen either to the Baptizer or to Jesus. Jesus says to them: “John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard….’” (Lk 7:33-34) John refused to eat bread, but for Jesus bread is an important element of his ministry; he even taught us to pray for it. “Give us today our daily bread.”
Why do you suppose John refused to eat this staple food that Jesus found so important? Related reasons: Bread and wine are processed foods associated with settled communities; for John, as for many prophets, the settled communities were places of corruption. John would have nothing to do with corrupt society, and bread, for him, was a symbol of that society. John rejected by his refusal to eat bread. The second, related reason that John will not eat bread has to do with ritual impurity. , “The reference to John not eating bread or wine probably indicates that John preferred to eat foods that had not been processed by human hands and would not therefore be susceptible to impurity. For this same reason John was said to have eaten locusts and honey (Matt. 3:4), both of which were regarded by his fellow Jews as pure items of food.”
Just as the road in the desert, the straight, level, smooth road of justice and righteousness called for by the Baptizer must be cleared and built by God’s people, so “the bread of justice must be baked by the people.” That for which Jesus teaches us to pray each day, we must do the hard work of creating: hope and courage, faith and possibility, righteousness and justice.
Taken from The Daily Bread
Pastor Tom Brown
Pastor Jim Powell, Assoc. Pastor/Worship leader Terry Lowry, Elder
Bill Bujnowski, Lee Copeland, Lanny Dameron, Chris Lewis, Roger Brown and Lee Larson
Lora Slater – Secretary
John Greer – Media,
Tammy Powell – Custodian, Nursery, and Kitchen
