No.
Have a great week.
Grace to you, Glory to God.
No, it certainly isn’t. In fact, here is a picture of the Lomman house right now.
The tree is up and we are starting a few of our traditions intentionally early this year. Not just because a) it’s fun and we want to, or b) because baby is coming in early December, (both of which are certainly factors). We are beginning our celebrations early, primarily because we want to make the most of celebrating the joy of Christ coming to us, and instilling this as a tradition for our family.
Therefore, whether you smirk at the fact our tree is up and we are onto our 3rd batch of gingerbread in October or not, I wanted to take a second to encourage you to consider how you are celebrating this season in a Christ-exalting manner. As well as let you in on our plans as a church.
Traditions that Change Our Culture
Nearly everyone celebrates Christmas, whether they believe in Jesus or not. The question, then, is does our celebration of this season show that we are doing so out of joyful worship to our God and Saviour Jesus Christ who took upon flesh to rescue us from sin and death?
The traditions we value and practice help us build culture. Distinctly Christian culture. For our marriages, families, churches and community.
So can I encourage you to think about what things you could instil around this celebration of Christ. I don’t want to tell you what to do, but instead get you thinking and discussing. Here are some areas you could start thinking through:
- Doing an advent devotion and/or reading through the narrative of the Advent
- Celebrating around a weekly meal and gathering with others
- A homemade Advent Calendar?
- Blessing your neighbours?
- Using gifts and gift-giving as a tool for teaching about generosity and grace
- Carols? real ones?
Celebrate deliberately and join us as we seek to create a Christ-exalting culture.
Gracelife : Advent 2024
As a Church, we will end our time in Mark for the year mid-November and begin celebrating the first Advent of Christ on Sunday the 17th of November. This year we are going to be focussing on the Biblical theme of Feasting! This will start out with the ‘Forbidden Feast’ from Genesis 3 and take us to the ‘Eternal Feast’ of Revelation 19 the week after Christmas. We aim to feast well upon the riches of the gospel in which God came; through sermons that train us to look to Christ our rescue and consider his majesty, whilst celebrating practically through feasting and fellowship.
On this last note, we want to challenge you each week to prepare a feast, and invite someone. Maybe others from your church family or someone who doesn’t know Christ; and intentionally reflect on the core truth from each preceding sermon. I use ‘feast’ here rather vaguely, it may be a BBQ you are cooking anyway that you invite others to, or it could be offering to bring a meal to enjoy with others, or organising lunch at Fudds for any who are free after Church on a Sunday. However that looks, the hope is that we centre our celebration of this season around the glory of Christ through intentional fellowship.
Finally, a couple of dates for you:
- Evening Carols Service – Sunday the 22nd of December, 4:30-7:00 pm (instead of our morning service)… and yes, there will be gelato.
- Christmas Day Service – 9:00-10:00 am
- All other Sundays as normal.
Grace to you, glory to God.