A Family Time of the Year
This Christmas, Donna’s side of the family help our busy schedule and all, by choosing to come down to Oregon and help us celebrate this Christmas Season. We don’t get to see them to much, but when we do, it’s always a wonderful experience. Donna’s parents were the first to arrive on Christmas Eve day. They joined us for our first Christmas Eve Service that was held at The Chapel. Renting a High School has it’s benefits but it also has it’s drawbacks as well. It was nice of the School Distinct to allow us to have a Christmas eve service this year. It might have had something to do with the fact that Christmas Day was on Sunday and there was no staff available to open up the school. Anyway, it worked very well for us as we had a wonderful service.
Our Christmas day started out with our family, plus Grandma and Grandpa, gathered around the tree exchanging gifts. We followed that up with a brunch and a lazy day of playing games and talking.
The other families arrived and the schedule to hold, with planned dinners, shopping trips and a few of us had to work.
All in all, we are having a wonderful time.
May I say to all, a Merry Christmas and remember the reason we celebrated the season.
God Bless you All
Monday, December 26, 2005
Monday, December 19, 2005
A Double Christmas Surprize
A few weeks ago, I received a wonderful surprise, an offer for a Christmas Choir from another local church to come and present their Christmas Program to The Chapel. We have done a number of things with other local churches but we have never done anything together over a major holiday but it’s never to late to start.
Pastor Reed and Columbia Ridge meet in a local church on Saturday nights and for the first time, they organized a Choir to present several songs. It was a great blessing when they presented the idea of coming over to The Chapel the next day to bless our folks with the program.
It really turned out to be a wonderful day, the songs were great, we had many visitors along with our guest from CRCC. It truly was a demonstration of the unity of the body of Christ.
Have a great Christmas.
A few weeks ago, I received a wonderful surprise, an offer for a Christmas Choir from another local church to come and present their Christmas Program to The Chapel. We have done a number of things with other local churches but we have never done anything together over a major holiday but it’s never to late to start.
Pastor Reed and Columbia Ridge meet in a local church on Saturday nights and for the first time, they organized a Choir to present several songs. It was a great blessing when they presented the idea of coming over to The Chapel the next day to bless our folks with the program.
It really turned out to be a wonderful day, the songs were great, we had many visitors along with our guest from CRCC. It truly was a demonstration of the unity of the body of Christ.
Have a great Christmas.
Monday, December 12, 2005
A Huge Day
Dropped my wife off at work, got the coffee on, enjoyed the bible for a few moments and fired up the old laptop. It's Monday morning and the normal route on well on it's way. It's paper day at The Chapel, but before I dive in. I set and ponder the huge day we had at The Chapel yesterday.
It all started with a request by a sister church near by to merge with our church. Even though many hours of prayer, planing, and passionate conversations had been accomplish, I was still very couries of what the day would bring.
After a modified Sunday morning Celebration, we began our meeting, 40 minutes later, with many great questions and responses, our membership voted overwhelming to receive our sister church with open arms.
What does this mean? Well, for Good news, it means a fresh start and a new vision to accomplish. It means for Bruce and Betty that they will be able to slow down a bit and as they start the seventh decade of life on this earth, a well deserved slower pace is just what is in order.
For the Chapel, it's an opportunity to practice what we have been declaring from day one, to share Christ with others. The others, in this case, are some spiritual family members that just happen to be meeting at another location, but will now be part of the Chapel Family
For me, the time to advance is now upon me. To advance in my caring for another staff member. To advance in my communication skills. To advance in the care for a property that we have never had before. To advance in the new opportunities that has now come our way
I'm looking forward to this new day. With the Lords increasing help we will be able to make this transition very well.
Have a blessed day.
Dropped my wife off at work, got the coffee on, enjoyed the bible for a few moments and fired up the old laptop. It's Monday morning and the normal route on well on it's way. It's paper day at The Chapel, but before I dive in. I set and ponder the huge day we had at The Chapel yesterday.
It all started with a request by a sister church near by to merge with our church. Even though many hours of prayer, planing, and passionate conversations had been accomplish, I was still very couries of what the day would bring.
After a modified Sunday morning Celebration, we began our meeting, 40 minutes later, with many great questions and responses, our membership voted overwhelming to receive our sister church with open arms.
What does this mean? Well, for Good news, it means a fresh start and a new vision to accomplish. It means for Bruce and Betty that they will be able to slow down a bit and as they start the seventh decade of life on this earth, a well deserved slower pace is just what is in order.
For the Chapel, it's an opportunity to practice what we have been declaring from day one, to share Christ with others. The others, in this case, are some spiritual family members that just happen to be meeting at another location, but will now be part of the Chapel Family
For me, the time to advance is now upon me. To advance in my caring for another staff member. To advance in my communication skills. To advance in the care for a property that we have never had before. To advance in the new opportunities that has now come our way
I'm looking forward to this new day. With the Lords increasing help we will be able to make this transition very well.
Have a blessed day.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Anyone want to buy a Sacrifice.
During my devotional reading this morning, I came across this verse
2 Samuel 24:24 But the king replied to Araunah, "No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing."
This event acured after King David on his own free will choose to count the fighting men of the land, even though he was warned not to do so by a close confident. Because of it a 70,000 Israelites died during a three day period. To bring this to an end, David was instructed to sacrifice to God and it would end. He came across Araunah, who was willing to give him everything he needed for the sacrifice, but David's response was no . . .I will not sacrifice to the Lord My God anything that doesn't cost me nothing.
How can we learn from this? Serving, many times requires sacrifice and more times then not, it will cost something. There is no free serving, there is no free sacrifice . . more times then not it will cost us something.
The question then . . am I willing?
Have a blessed day.
During my devotional reading this morning, I came across this verse
2 Samuel 24:24 But the king replied to Araunah, "No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing."
This event acured after King David on his own free will choose to count the fighting men of the land, even though he was warned not to do so by a close confident. Because of it a 70,000 Israelites died during a three day period. To bring this to an end, David was instructed to sacrifice to God and it would end. He came across Araunah, who was willing to give him everything he needed for the sacrifice, but David's response was no . . .I will not sacrifice to the Lord My God anything that doesn't cost me nothing.
How can we learn from this? Serving, many times requires sacrifice and more times then not, it will cost something. There is no free serving, there is no free sacrifice . . more times then not it will cost us something.
The question then . . am I willing?
Have a blessed day.
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