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Showing posts from December, 2016

One Thousand Words on Home for the Holy Days

This is the text of my Christmas Eve sermon. It is based upon Luke 2:1-7. In editing it, I finished a set of corrections, and saw that the word count was exactly 1000 words. So I decided to stop right there. Merry Christmas - Enjoy your home, where ever it is. Quick survey. How many of you travelled “a distance” to be here? I don’t mean here, as in church – by the way, thanks for coming - but here as in Longwood/Withee /Greenwood? You’ve come here to celebrate Christmas.  How many of you are back after spending time away, such as in college, or your work takes you away. Hands up please? Thank you. To all of you, welcome home and Merry Christmas. Joseph and Mary headed to the town from which his family came, Bethlehem, not so much for the holidays but because In those days Caesar Augustus declared that everyone throughout the empire should be enrolled in the tax lists. … Everyone went to their own cities to be enrolled. Since Joseph belonged to David’s house and family lin

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

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This is the Article From Ananias for the December 2016 Newsletter. I am SO excited about this time of the year. My Big Guy has gotten out a lot of decorations to put up around the house. He hasn’t put them all up yet, but is working on them. I’ve offered to help, but everything is too high for me to reach. So I mostly just help by smelling them to make sure they are ok to put up. One of the things he had out that I was sniffing was what he called a Nativity scene. He could tell that I was curious so he stopped putting things on that little tree and told me a story. It seems that God decided that the best way for people to understand how much God loves them was for God to become a people. That way, God could show them how to love one another. It makes SO MUCH sense. If My Big Guy could become a dog like me, I’d understand him so much better, and he’d understand me better too. God didn’t want to be a part of some rich or powerful family. Instead, he chose to be

Put the X Back in X-Mas!

This is my Pastor’s Ponderings article for the December 2016 Newsletter. Don’t be afraid! Look! I bring good news to you—wonderful, joyous news for all people. Your savior is born today in David’s city. He is Christ the Lord. – Luke 2:10-11 CEB Now that I have your attention, let me explain. As part of the “War on Christmas,” people have been pushing back on the use of the term “X-Mas.” They want to put the “Christ back in Christmas.” If you have been one of those people, you’ve been fighting the wrong fight. I don’t have a problem using, writing or saying X-Mas. That is because, unlike Algebra class, the X is not unknown. The X in X-Mas is Christ. The reason is that X is the Greek letter CHI, the first letter in the title Christ (χριστὸς). The second letter, the one that looks like a “p” is actually RHO, and has the sound of the letter “R.” It is an ancient way for people to identify themselves as Christians, combining the letters CHI and RHO. It is where we get