Welcome to 2016! 2015 is in the rear-view mirror and hopefully you are looking forward with GREAT expectations to the new year. 2016 is laid out before us like a field of fresh fallen snow just waiting for us to make our footprints in it…are you ready! Then let’s go!
We had a great New Years’s Eve party at the church playing games and enjoying good food. There are some good cooks up here, so Christie fits right in! We all enjoyed a great firework show on the river. Since it is not dark for July 4th, the big firework shows is done on New Year’s Eve. It was a beautiful sight to see all the colors of the fireworks lighting up the snow covered snow on the frozen river. On the way back to the church we got our first view of the Northern Lights. It was an amazing sight. At first it looked like they were just “hanging” in the sky…then they started to move and almost seemed to dance across the sky. They say at times they will “pop” and it sounds like they are singing and dancing.
We rang in the New Year with a Praise and Worship service on Sunday. It was a very sweet time as we sang praises to the Father, shared testimonies of thankfulness, read Scripture and spent time in prayer. It was a very good time of worship. We are hoping to add more types of services like these over the next year.
This Sunday, January 10, I will be sharing a message, “A Good Spy Story”, from Numbers 13-14. I am setting the stage to share our vision for the church in the coming year at the end of the message. I truly believe God has brought several people to the village of McGrath, at this time, to take this community for the Lord. I sense this when I talk to many of the people that come to worship. We know what the land is like, we know what the people are like, and we know what the “obstacles” are…we even have the “report from the spies”. Now, will we see the land as too hard a mission field and like the 10 spies say we should not go in; or like Caleb and Joshua, believe that God has gone before us and made the way…AND TAKE THE LAND! Please pray for this message!
I am putting the final work into the new weekly kid’s Bible club (K4G, Kids 4 God) that will start in the next week or so. I am excited to get back connected with the kids. I have seen them at some of the holiday functions, but I have not been able to spend much time with them. I am hoping that this will generate interest for the summer VBS.
As we start the new year, and we look forward to what God is going to do in 2016, I would like to share the follow words from Oswald Chambers:
“Worship is giving God the best you have. Be careful what you do with the best you have. The measure of the worth of our public activity for God is the private profound communion we have with Him.”
I want to challenge myself, and all of us, to carve out quality time to sit with God, with His Word, and to spent good time in prayer with Him. He truly misses His time with us!