Let's face it, even the best of us, have days where we feel like the Grinch. There are just days where we are not feeling the love. That is ok, but what we do and how we act in those moments say a lot about our heart and our relationship with Jesus. If we have grown our heart, grown in Christlike love, then when we have those moments when we are feeling like a Grinch we don't bring others down with us. You see the Grinch was feeling unloved, the Grinch was having many Grinchy days or a Grinchy life, and he wanted to bring everyone else down to his level of misery. We as Christians realize that even when we are having those Grinchy moments our call is still to love. It isn't easy to do but if we grow our heart by following Jesus, then it becomes easier to, even on our Grinchy days. And those of us who are growing our heart in Christlike love need to notice when someone is having a Grinchy day and instead of running away showing them that they are loved. Let them share their story, let them share how they are feeling, and love and affirm them. In the process we will often find both the giver and receiver will leave the interaction with hearts that have grown!!
This Sunday is the Second Sunday in Advent and we are focusing on love. We are continuing our sermon series looking at television Christmas specials and highlighting the Gospel story that is in them and what we can learn from them. I think this is one you might want to share with friends and neighbors who dont go to church. We are online so they can check us out there before coming to church even.
This Sunday is a communion Sunday. If you are going to worship with us online have your "bread and juice" with you. Also we have a communion side offering that is going to help a retired church couple be able to have reliable transportation. Rose and Stanley Weimer have worked hard their whole life and the vehicle they use to get around needs lots of work. They either need to find a good used car or pay a great deal to fix their very old car. At Tom's Creek we try to make "miracles" happen and this seems like a way that we can help someone in our church family have one of those miracle moments. Normally, we have a place people drop their communion offering as they come up for communion but you can give online too. For our online giving there is a spot that says Missions-NOW and you can put in an amount and then there is a blank box and you can type in "Rose and Stan Car" and it will be added to making this miracle happen. The link is here: Rose and Stan Car .
Instead of attaching the bulletin to the blog I want to direct you to our website where we post the bulletin here: https://www.tomscreekumc.com/bulletins
While we do our best to provide good online worship it is not the same as being in the sanctuary. If you are in the sanctuary during Advent you are going to notice that each week the decorations and symbols of faith will be moving and changing. We also know that no matter how good the soundboard is it can't give you the exact same sound and feel of being in the sanctuary. So for those of you who can't be with us in the sanctuary I am going to attach a picture from the sanctuary area to let you see some of the views you can't fully see on the live-feed. As always we are live-streaming on our Facebook page or our YouTube channel.
We are Christmas Caroling after worship on Dec. 12th. We would love to have more carolers with us as we go out to life peoples spirits and let them know they are loved. Also, if you know someone who has had a very rough year that lives within a 20 mile radius of the church let us know who they are if you think us dropping by would help them.
We can help keep Christ in Christmas by showing Christlike love. That means not allowing the inner Grinch to win but instead growing our hearts in love. If the Grinch could grow his heart you can too! Let us help others have a Christmas miracle of having their hearts grow too!!
Blessings,
PH
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