Among other things, Christmas is about memories. My favorite Christmas memory came in a small church in Germany. We joined worshippers in singing \u201cSilent Night\u201d in both German and English, as it snowed lightly outside. While this favorite memory brought tears, my second favorite Christmas memory brought laughter. My granddaughter had given me a tie for Christmas, with an image of Santa Claus in his Sleigh on it. If you pressed the front, the tie played \u201cJingle Bells.\u201d She insisted that I wear the tie the following Sunday in the church where I was serving as Interim Pastor. About two-thirds of the way through my sermon, I leaned into the pulpit, setting off the song. With the lapel mike located only a couple of inches away, the entire congregation heard my tie play \u201cJingle Bells.\u201d I apologized, but finished my sermon to an auditorium full of smiling faces. Whether this Christmas was marked with tears or laughter, I hope it was meaningful for you. I also hope you are thankful for some new memories made. \u201cThanks be unto God for his indescribable gift\u201d (2 Corinthians 9:15, NIV).<\/p>\n
Would you like to be a member of a group that reads a chapter per day in the Bible and has opportunity to post thoughts, observations, questions, prayer requests, etc. on a private group Facebook site? If so, send me a private message no later than 5pm on Wednesday, December 30 and I\u2019ll send you more information. We begin January 1 reading the Psalms. You must be on Facebook to participate.<\/p>\n
Join me in praying for the following global concerns:
\n\u2022 Pray for a church in Kharkov, Ukraine that plans a New Year\u2019s outreach for 300 displaced families, and a Christmas party (January 7th) for 350 children displaced by the conflict in Eastern Ukraine.
\n\u2022 Give thanks for the Christmas service at Zendeh Church (Farsi speaking) in metro Vancouver, Canada. They had 80 present and 160 present for the fellowship time following. For many Iranians, it was the first time to attend a church function.
\n\u2022 Also give thanks for the Linh-An Vietnamese Baptist Church that held a Christmas service on Vancouver Island with about 50 people attending and three receiving Christ.
\n\u2022 Continue to pray for missionary families who are returning to the U.S. this month in response to an early retirement initiative. Some still need vehicles and housing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Among other things, Christmas is about memories. My favorite Christmas memory came in a small church in Germany. We joined worshippers in singing \u201cSilent Night\u201d in both German and English, as it snowed lightly outside. While this favorite memory brought tears, my second favorite Christmas memory brought laughter. My granddaughter had given me a tie…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}