God pours out His blessings all the time.  Some blessings, like the sun, the rain and the air we breathe, He pours out on all people.  Other blessings are reserved for those who love the Lord and recognize they are called according to His purposes in this life.

I loved the way our family celebrated Christmas when I grew up.  It was a family spectacle with a wonderful tree glistening with silver tinsel and lots of lights, including magical ones filled with water that bubbled in bright colors all day long.  Friends and neighbors dropped off cookies, candy and gifts.  Carols were sung by strolling carolers.  Four Sundays of Advent prepared our hearts to hear the story of Jesus’ birth presented on Christmas eve with candle light, beautiful music and a crèche depicting baby Jesus in a manger surrounded by animals, shepherds and wise men. 

What a magical time for us children, retelling again and again how Jesus came as God’s unique gift to humanity on a starry night when angels sang to fearful shepherds tending their flocks near Bethlehem.

Then, much later, we discovered the pagan origins of Christmas and how many of our Christmas customs had origins in a Roman holiday dedicated to their god of agriculture.  The Romans ate and drank a lot, and lit candles to fend off the darkest days of the year. They could only hope the sun would return once again.  In the 4th century the church fathers finally redeemed those misdirected customs by associating the season with the birth of Jesus. 

In early America Puritans banned Christmas celebrations as pagan, and Congress actually began its first session in 1789 on Christmas day, an ordinary business day.  Christmas was widely seen in the Colonies as an English thing fit mostly to be ignored.  Not until after the Civil War in 1879 did Congress proclaim it to be a national holiday.  Charles Dickens’ famous story, “A Christmas Carol“, published in 1843, is credited with re-framing the holiday as a family-centered event, popularizing it in the public’s mind.

The last 50 years, Christmas controversy has continued. We’ve seen atheists oppose Christmas displays in the public square, merchants turn Christmas into the biggest selling season of the year, and the words “Merry Christmas” widely displaced by “Happy Holidays” out of political correctness.  Today, Christmas is viewed by the secular world as a season of heightened depression and increased suicide (fact check: suicide rates are actually highest in spring).  Psychologists say Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) peaks this time of year when unrealistic expectations and excessive self-reflection increase, perhaps due to winter weather and diminished daylight.

Who’d have thought this wonderful holiday dedicated to celebrating the birth of a perfectly innocent baby could be so controversial or, so…well, SAD?!

We shouldn’t be surprised. Jesus Himself said: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”  When He said this He was teaching His apostles about the need to go and tell people that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand.  He foresaw the opposition that would come to their message.

At Christmas time Baby Jesus looks so sweet and innocent lying in the manger.  Beautiful baby Jesus destined to save the world from itself.  Isaiah called Him: “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

This particular Christmas let us remember once again “unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.”  This is the reason for the season.  It’s a beautiful thing, indeed.

May you have a hope-filled, Spirit-filled Merry Christmas, indeed! 

We are in the midst of the church season called “Advent”, which means “coming” and refers to the first coming of Jesus in Bethlehem and also his promised Second Coming to reign on earth as King.  Liturgical churches such as Lutherans, and Episcopalians celebrate Advent for four Sundays before Christmas, typically reading scriptures out loud together related to Jesus’ coming. 

In the 4th and 5th centuries, Advent became a 40-day period of fasting in preparation for baptism on the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th.  That date comes twelve days after Christmas, as proclaimed in the popular Christmas song, The Twelve Days of Christmas.  The word Epiphany means “to reveal” and so Advent became associated with a series of four major revelations about Jesus, including:

This Christmas we too focus intentionally on the Coming of Christ.  The unerring Word of God tells the story of His supernatural birth as a human being, His many miracles, His finished work on the Cross, and His dispensation of the Holy Spirit that enables us to experience God directly for ourselves.  Through the power of the Spirit we can hear God’s voice, walk in the gifts of the Spirit and perform miracles just as Jesus did.  As we grow in Christ, we are transformed by His Spirit from glory to glory into greater and greater likeness of Him.  The ultimate glory is this: Christ coming to life within each of us, our one true hope of lasting glory.

O come, O King of nations, bind in one the hearts of all mankind.
Bid all our sad divisions cease and be yourself our King of Peace.

What a wonderful expectation to contemplate this Advent season.

We shared last Sunday about how Reach Out is set up to restore individuals and families to bring the love and reality of Christ into our homes, communities and beyond.  This coming Sunday we’ll continue our series on church vision by talking about how we equip people “on the inside.” By this we’re referring to the transformation ministries available at Reach Out, including worship, personal prayer, pastoral counseling, Sozo, deliverance and Biblical life coaching.  Representatives from each of these ministries will share a little about what these ministries have to offer.

How many know that Jesus accepts us just as we are when we first encounter Him but He loves us too much to leave us that way.  Before we can influence others for Jesus, we ourselves have to allow Him to change us.  Indeed, He invites us to be born again—made entirely new—through the power of His sacrifice on the Cross.  Remember, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead now lives in all those who follow Him as Lord and Savior.

Romans 12:2 says we are transformed by the renewing of our minds so we are no longer enslaved to conform to the ordinary ways of the world.  Rather, Jesus sends His Spirit to enable us to discern and live from the inside out God’s perfect will for our lives. 

The goal of our inner equipping ministries is to help each person regardless of age or background find and rely on their own connection with God through Christ Jesus.  We believe each person is fundamentally capable of experiencing God for themselves because God made us all in His image and likeness.  The Word of God is our instruction manual and we rely on the Spirit of God to connect you with what God wants you to know, change and become.  We can  help you recognize and perceive God directly for yourself, as He is the only One who really knows what’s best for you at any moment in time.

Worship is the foundation of inner equipping at Reach Out because through worship we regularly encounter and learn to directly experience God’s presence.  Often God speaks through His Spirit during worship and so we also learn to recognize His living voice.  When we hear, taste and see that God is good during times of worship, we learn to hear, taste and recognize God’s presence at other times in our lives, and so we become equipped more and more to be led by His Spirit.

In this way we discover the Kingdom of God within us, and we know for certain we are children of the Living God who empowers us to live and move and have our being in Him.  Acts 17:28   We look forward to seeing you this Sunday.

We are engaged in a four-Sunday series laying out both the vision of what Reach Out is becoming and the leadership structure being put in place here to help us become what God is calling us to be.  We are called to be a hothouse where the Kingdom of God can grow year round.  Just as greenhouses sprout flowers out of season, even in the dead of winter, so God has positioned our church to nurture new life from the seed of His Word and living water of His Spirit—even in the midst of the world’s darkness today.  

Scripture says we labor in vain unless God builds our house.  Since our church was formed 25 years ago, God has been speaking through visitors and our own leaders about what He is building at Reach Out.  Through Elizabeth Austin and Scott Ross, He declared Ezekiel 34:15-16.  We are to be a place where God, Himself, “will search for the lost and bring back the strays…bind up the injured and strengthen the weak.”  Doug Stanton, Steve Smith and others saw and released rivers of living waters flowing from heaven, bringing imperishable seeds of God’s Word to life, person by person, children included!

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Our prayer warriors have received multiple visions of an enormous Tree of Life growing in our midst.  It has deep and broad roots and an enormous crown of leaves bearing fruit in season and out of season.  This is who we are and also who we are becoming, precept upon precept, soul after soul.  It is a vision of abundant life made possible only by Jesus.

The Bible tells us God invented “family.”   Moreover, He made it in His own image.  Here are the verses:

Not one of us is born without the union of male and female components no matter what someone’s “gender identity” may be their mind. (*See footnote.) Given the brokenness of modern families, it’s not surprising that a lot of modern research has been devoted to trying to prove or disprove whether raising kids in intact families with fathers and mothers is actually superior to raising them as single parents.  The overall conclusion is children of intact families are generally more likely to succeed than other children but there’s a lot of variance in the data and certainly there are children of single parents who do well.  Factors such as family background, education, moral behavior, finances, etc. all can affect the success profile of a single parent child.

This means that “Family” can neither be taken for granted nor idolized.  Still, according to the Bible, it’s God’s original design and much evidence underscores that nurturing, protection and affirmation of identity work best when there are both a father and mother present living in the Biblical covenant relationship of marriage.  Even so we understand that God is a father to the fatherless, a restorer and nurturer to the unloved, and affirms all who come to Him crying “Abba Father.”  His love is boundless and Christ’s blood covers every fault and shortcoming.

What I believe is that the crucial element that makes family the true crown of creation and a most valuable item in God’s ancient treasure chest (apart from the Living Word of God, itself) is when families learn to keep Jesus at the center of their life.  Saying prayers together, reading Bible stories out loud, talking about God and faith, modeling love, honor and forgiveness as Jesus taught us—these are the real keys to raising children successfully.  Where God’s love is combined with wisdom and put into action, children will not depart from it.  Proverbs 22:6