On December 1st I began a new season of serving the Lord and His people at a new local church. Brand new local church. Today we’ve been gathering in worship for one month. One month. One. 

Gathering weekly as one body at a local chapel, we’re learning to be a good neighbor and to be a blessing to our hosts. Two weeks in we offered a ‘hospitality training’ to learn to set the stage for family worship upon arrival for us/the community we serve, and to reset the local business to open well on Monday. We’ll offer this training monthly while we are their guest.

But where do we go during the week? Celebrating God’s goodness and living out the Christian life in the world God’s called us to knowing we can’t fight the devil well with only one hour of the 168 hours of a week. 

Our mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ who worship passionately, love extravagantly, and witness boldly.

On Friday night Dec. 1st we walked in the local Christmas parade with a hand-painted banner of our church name. Three year olds in a wagon to teens to senior saints. We handed out Ziploc bags, made by the youth the previous Wednesday night, with a mint, an invitation ‘you are mint to be in community’ and 700 copies of the Gideon’s Life Book along with candy. Just being a good neighbor. There were so many new folks I had yet to meet and I was downright giddy.

The following Sunday morning we gathered at the chapel with great delight, anticipation, and Advent joy. Wise and trusted lay folks planning Sunday small groups and worship on top of family Advent stuff…these folks are on fire and I’m here all day for all of it.

On Sunday evening we gathered at a local farm for Campfire Christmas to start the Advent season to worship passionately, as a family, enjoying our first family worship service with holy communion. We took up a love offering to cover the cost of the space rental, invited a local modern worship leader from a sister church who serves my home church, asked a kidmin super champion to decorate a stage and another to prepare kid-directed Advent activities for all ages including an inaugural Christmas ornament with our church name, and they had set up a sign-up genius for the rest.

The sign-up genius filled up in less than 48 hours. They went in to add more opportunities for folks to serve and those were filled soon after.

Worship – Christmas carols with teaching of their origin

Nativity play – interactive with hand masks and audience prompts of WOW! OH NO! And AWWWWE!

Holy communion – pre-filled communion cups that look like chalises.

Activity stations & Dinner – one long table of crafts, one solo stove for roasted marshmallows and Rice Crispy treat squares with sticks, hot dogs and chili in crock pots with chips, hot chocolate & apple cider, and small water bottles.

Last song & blessing – One of our high schoolers brought his trumpet. While dinner and the activities were winding down, he played Christmas carols. Delight was seen on every face and many jumped in to sing. THEN, our amazing worship leader pulled him in and arranged on-the-spot to duet the leading of our closing song,  Joy to the World. Guitar and trumpet. I’ll never forget it!

It was 43 degrees and pouring down rain.

Families kept coming and we kept celebrating. 

90 minutes of passionate worship, loving one another extravagantly, and witnessing boldly to God’s goodness and faithfulness to our hosts and one another. 

And we’re just getting started.

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common.” Acts 2:42-44