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Monday Morning Recap for Sunday – December 14, 2014

We had our 12th Annual Christmas Worship Service yesterday at OMPC – No Eye Had Seen.

All told we had over 160 involved in choir, band, tech, kids and youth choirs.

Here’s the “blurb” that I wrote for the program – in case you missed it.

I get asked the same question every year: “Are you going to use the Charlie Brown Christmas thing again this year?” The answer is always “Yes!” I love the simplicity of Linus’s response to Charlie Brown’s question about the real meaning of Christmas. Nothing else more accurately articulates my heart’s desire for our church’s focus during our Christmas worship service. The ridiculousness of all the other clips in trying to answer that question, contrasted with “Lament” in Charlie Brown throughout the montage, highlights the same struggle that we face today. I can only imagine those that were waiting on Christ’s first arrival experienced that same longing.

This Sunday’s Christmas service is no different from the others in the past. We’re trying to enter into the beauty of Christ coming to redeem, in the midst of our struggles, pain and longing for more. As we do, we are reminded not only that the prophets of old experienced the same longings and struggles, but that Christ has promised that He is returning once again, and very soon, to restore all things, reverse death and establish His kingdom forever.

We will open this Sunday with a time of reflection and a time of lament. Our present-day pain parallels the hunger described in the prophets as they looked for the coming of the Messiah. Our cries to God to show up, and the song “Say Something” can certainly be compared with the drama involved in Mary, Joseph and the angelic messages from Heaven as they walked through what we can only imagine was a horribly difficult journey. And our desire to worship and bring offerings is a reflection of the initial worship offerings from shepherds and wise men.
We all enter in to the Christmas season with something or someone on our hearts. We’re all crying out for God to show up, to say something, to do something. As you listen, reflect and worship this Sunday, be reminded that God chose to send The Redeemer in the most understated way possible—a birth in a manger, under the stars, with an audience of shepherds. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t a shock felt around the world. It was a small movement that shaped the course of time and rescued our souls for His glory. That same God is working today to bring the same redemptive work to every area of our lives, our hearts, and our minds.  

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