Video Credit: The Village Church
Video Credit: The Village Church
For many of us, Christmas comes like a whirlwind and is gone before we know it, with much of our attention drawn to gifts, food, and family. While none of those are bad things, the purpose of Christmas is to celebrate God sending Jesus into the world to save us from our sins. Gifts, food, family, and other things can be part of that celebration, but if we are not careful, the season is consumed by them.
Advent is designed to help us avoid that. It is a season recognized by the church that traditionally starts four weeks before Christmas. The purpose of Advent is to help us avoid rushing into Christmas, but instead to anticipate it, reflecting on what it means, and to cause us to rejoice at the coming of Jesus.
Advent is a season designed to remind us of the darkness and despair of our own hearts, that God promised to rescue us from that darkness, and that he sent Jesus, born as a baby, to become that rescue.
To help you do this, we have prepared an Advent Guide for you and your family. Each week has an adults devotional and a kids/family devotional focused around our theme Investigating Christmas. The guide also includes coloring pages and resources for how to celebrate the season and establish gospel-centered Advent traditions.
We have focused the month of December around the season of Advent. The messages on Sundays will direct our focus together toward the first coming of Jesus as a baby and all that it means for us, as well as his future second coming to restore all things. Both remind us that our hope is in Jesus alone!
Our theme for this year is Investigating Christmas. We will explore why the details of the Christmas story matter and how they give shape and context to who Jesus is and why he came. We will also sing Christmas songs and read kids’ Christmas stories together.
This is a great season to invite friends, family, and neighbors to hear about and experience the true meaning of Christmas!
Our Christmas service is on Sunday, December 20th, at 6pm in our Gathering Room on campus! This is always a special day together, and we encourage you to invite many family, friends, and neighbors to be your special guests as we celebrate the arrival of Jesus together!
Join the Remedy ladies on December 15th for a fun time together, and invite a friend to join you! You’ll go home with an assortment of cookies for your friends and family!
This reading plan slowly works through the promises of God and the longing of his people, leading up to the arrival of Jesus on Christmas. It’s a 31 day plan, but many of the readings are short and can be combined to customize it to your schedule.
Check out more ideas and resources to help you walk through this Advent season with your family.
Night of Wonder is an event in partnership with many churches in Waxahachie to serve and support lower income families through the local schools. The event is happening on Tuesday, December 12th.
We are sponsoring Dunaway Elementary and will be providing Christmas gifts and a hot meal for Christmas day for several of their students and families. The particular students will be assigned to individual Missional Communities, so talk to your MC leaders about that. We will need everyone who is able to sponsor students.
We will also need a handful of volunteers for the event the night of December 12th. We will eat a meal with the families and, do an activity with the kids, and pass the Christmas gifts on to the parents. If you are interested in volunteering, please email Bryan Wooten.
Video Credit: Desiring God