With Us

Darlene Thulson, Children's Pastor

Last week my three year old grandson, Drew, wanted to watch a short “Chip and Dale” on my tablet.  As we sat on the couch together, I found the Centennial Covenant’s Children’s Christmas program on YouTube that we had posted. Drew and I decided to watch that first.  What a gift from God that turned out to be!

Since I was “directing” from the floor on the Sunday we presented our program, I didn’t see what was going on by the stable. But the video captured the whole thing.  While the kids were coming and going on the stage, acting out the Christmas story, there was one “sheep” – and his “shepherd” – standing by the manger, riveted on “baby Jesus.”

It was at that moment that the Holy Spirit reminded me that the most important thing during this season of doing things for Jesus is to be with Jesus.  

 He is inviting me to just be with Him,
to look into His eyes filled with love for me.   

Words from an old song came to mind, 

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in His wonderful face. 

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim

In the light of His glory and grace.

These last 10 days have been a snapshot of life in our broken world.  

In the very middle of Advent, a time of celebrating the coming of Emmanuel, a very disturbed young man walks into his school and shoots an innocent girl sitting in a hallway.  The impact of that 80 seconds of destruction has been deeply felt in our church family.  With seven students and two faculty (one of them being my son-in-law) from our church being at Arapahoe High School, we have felt the grief, anger and sadness in a huge way.  

 Yet, the darkness of that act cannot negate the fact
that Emmanuel is with us.   

As more and more stories come out from that day, it is obvious that Emmanuel was in that school, alongside the students and faculty.  Emmanuel was with each of us as we prayed and waited and helped as we could.  Emmanuel will bring redemption in ways we cannot see now. 

May each of us take time to look into His face day by day, minute by minute. Even Now!

Mission

Karl Helvig: Youth and Young Adults 

Mission impossible.  Mission accomplished.  Mission: Put a pony tail in my daughter's hair and convince her to leave it there (which, for a dad like me sometimes feels like mission impossible!).

This past Saturday the students of Studio72 talked and learned about God's mission.

More importantly, we sought to JOIN in his mission and steer our lives to BE missional.  

 Every day on mission.

It strikes me that Advent and the whole Christmas season is really quite timely for a conversation about mission.  Sometimes we can be easily tempted to believe that Christmas is about all sorts of things that it really isn't about: shopping, tinsel, reindeer with red noses, ugly sweaters, egg nog, movies with heart warming themes and lots of fires in fireplaces.  None of those things are bad (I plan to include many of them somewhere during my Christmas season), but they are most certainly not the center of what Christmas is about.

Rather, thousands of years ago God made a promise to a guy named Abram and said he would bless the whole world through him and his kids.  Some time went by and God made another promise to save and redeem his people (which, is actually part of the first promise to bless others through his people).  Then, all sorts of God-followers spent lots of time talking about how this would happen and when this would happen and who the Messiah would be (Messiah being the anointed one of God who would accomplish the thousands of years old mission that God set in motion with a guy from a place called Ur... [feel free to peruse Genesis 11-25 for more on the guy from Ur, also called Abram, also called Abraham]).  So, God has been on a mission for about as long as anyone can tell and that mission is simple, He wants to bless the world.

 

Christmas is the season when we remember one of the
central, major, history-altering moments in God's mission.

 God decided to move his mission forward by coming to earth.

 That is what Christmas is about.

 

God moved his mission forward by coming to earth.  God included Abram in his mission, Abram lived on earth.  After Jesus grew up and was crucified and resurrected he told his followers he would leave his Holy Spirit with us here on earth.   
 

God's mission gets moved forward by people on earth.

 

This Christmas season: be invigorated as you continue to join in God's mission; be reminded of the miracle of God's coming to earth to accomplish his mission with us; be encouraged by the friends and family and tinsel and ugly sweaters that ideally remind us of the reason we celebrate so thoroughly every year.

How are you joining that mission this Christmas?

 

Merry Missional Christmas!

Unhealthy Appetites

Jon Hardin

I’ve been thinking about unhealthy eating.  A recent doctor’s exam revealed that my cholesterol is creeping upward and came with the warning: “You’ve got to pay more attention to what you eat.”  Well, that’s what I’ve been trying to do these past few days, and it’s made me realize something: this next month can be one of the year’s most unhealthy sandwiches—the weeks “sandwiched” between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  For many this will be like a high-calorie sandwich—stuffed with over-eating, over-spending, and over-absorption with self and family. 

In the last week Lynda and I have been vividly reminded how, while we are eating our way toward Christmas, many people remain spiritually famished during this season’s celebrations.  We recently spent the evening with Muslim friends from the Middle East, and a few days later we had a meal with another person from a similar part of the world.  It made me realize that while I am tempted to turn inward during the holiday season, there are people like these—in fact billions more—who share these non-Christian worldviews and who (whether they realize it or not) are starving for the very thing we are supposed to be celebrating during this season: the Gift of God that deserves all our thanks.

So yes, the doctor was correct; I need to watch my diet.  But not just my consumption of high-cholesterol food and needless stuff.  Even more, I need to fast from my own spiritual carelessness  I’m reminded of Jesus’ statement regarding his own appetite, when his disciples were preoccupied with getting lunch, in John 4.  On that occasion Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34).  Now that’s a healthy appetite!  May God grant us hunger to do his will and kingdom work throughout the “sandwich weeks” of Advent. 

Accomplishing Within the Accomplished

Senior Pastor, Steve Thulson

I’ve been thinking a lot these days (and preaching) about “running at the pace of grace.” Like most people I know, my days get full and move fast. It makes a difference for the good when I remember and embrace this: the reality of God and his grace. I love the prayer of Isaiah (26:12 NIV): 

Lord, you establish peace for us;

all that we have accomplished

you have done for us.

Peace has been established. Our risen Lord’s finished work on the cross reconciles us to the Father, promises that one day all will be well, and allows his Spirit to indwell our hearts and spread a peace for the living of our days.

 The farmer-philosopher Wendell Berry has composed a series of Sabbath Poems. Here’s one that echoes the paradox of Isaiah’s prayer on seeing all our accomplishments within God’s. Read it slowly. As you do, think of your hard work. And then place it into an even greater work and so a growing rest. 

Whatever is foreseen in joy

Must be lived out from day to day.

Vision held open in the dark

By our ten thousand days of work.

Harvest will fill the barn; for that

The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled

By work of ours; the field is tilled

And left to grace. That we may reap,

Great work is done while we’re asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood

Rests on our day, and finds it good.

(Wendell Berry, in A Timbered Choir, “Sabbath Poem, 1979, X”)