Hi Church family
As it’s Christmas season much of our church related programs focus on the theme of Christ’ birth as is declared in the Bible. That is what we’ll proclaim when we have our special Family Carols event this Saturday 15 Dec – 6pm at the C3 Building in Joondalup. Bring your kids, neighbours and friends along and let’s enjoy celebrating the true meaning of Christmas.
On Sunday I’ll be starting a mini Christmas sermon series. We’ll look first at the person of Mary, then the following Sunday at the person of Joseph. Then finally on Christmas day we’ll look at the person of Jesus, the central person in the Christmas story.
Do note that our Christmas day service will be from 9 -10am, Tuesday 25th December. I was sent a link recently that I found very helpful and I’d love to share it with you as a resource to look into & keep for future reference. It involves the debate of recent years where some claim that Christmas has its roots in paganism (idol worship). Many folk choose simply not to get involved in the debate. Others have strong views and convictions on both sides of the argument. My strong conviction is that
Christmas does not have its roots in pagan worship. But more importantly, this debate is not something that we as Christians should get angry and offended over. Let’s make room for people’s different views.
And if we debate this topic, let’s do it respectfully, tainting our conversations with grace and love. *Here is the link to the article from a known and trusted source (CMI) that proves with historically, accurate facts that Christmas is not rooted in pagan worship.
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:2-3
The above is actually a good example of how we will sometimes see things differently. That’s just human nature. And most of the things we perhaps disagree on would be because of our experiences
or personal convictions. But they don’t need to be things we ‘break fellowship’ over. Sometimes that old saying of ‘let’s agree to disagree’ is very helpful. Especially on the less important matters of life.
God bless and see you all on Sunday
Pastor Joe