Putting God Back in the Holidays

Bill and Penny Thrasher have written an excellent book that can help any of us redeem the holidays and other special occasions by using them for the glory of God. It's a purchase worthy of the price and you can get it from your local bookseller now.

If you're like me, I want to use special occasions and holiday events to focus my own heart on Christ and point others to Him, as well.

Consider a few of their ideas for the Christmas season and see if you don't agree that they are onto something here. And, this is just a sampling of the many ideas they have included in the book.

• Prayer Mailbox — Set up a covered prayer mailbox on your front porch. Then send out a message to your neighbors letting them know that they are welcome to put prayer requests in the box. Pray for the requests throughout the holidays. Be sure to let them know that they may keep the request(s) anonymous if they would like.

• Decorated Homes — Drive someone around town to look at the decorated homes, especially the elderly or shut-ins who might not get out much.

• Christmas Story — Read Luke 2 out loud as a family. If you have younger children, have them act out the story as you read it. Kids love to dress up!!

• Cocoa Party — Host a cocoa party for your children and their friends and use it as a time to sing Christmas carols or read the Christmas story.

• Handel’s Messiah — If you haven’t listened to Handel’s Messiah, don’t let another year pass until you have heard it for yourself. Consider playing it in the background as you open presents, or another opportune time such as addressing Christmas cards.

As you can see, these things (and more like them in the book) can make the Christmas season more than the ordinary consumer event most of us endure.  I always figure a book is worth the price if I get at least one good idea from it. You’ll get a lot more than one good idea from, Putting God Back in the Holidays.

It covers events like: Christmas, New Years, Easter, Thanksgiving, National Holidays, birthdays, etc., etc.

This is a tool for those that don’t want to waste one more special occasion, but want to redeem these events for the good of others/ourselves and the glory of God!

Order yours today and start highlighting these special events in a manner that exalts Christ and leads people to Him.

November Thoughts

Missions Celebration in review
Now that our missions celebration month has ended, I want to take a moment to thank the Lord for His blessings on this special emphasis and for the many people that made a commitment to join us in the endeavor of reaching our world with the Good News of Jesus Christ. It’s still not too late for you to get involved yourself, if you forgot to do so during one of the services last month.

We were privileged to meet three new missionary families going to places in the world where we have no representative from our church. My prayer is that by the end of the year all three of these families will be part of our outreach team taking the Gospel in our stead to places we cannot go. You can help make that happen by beginning your faith-giving to missions in November. If you are a member of LMBC then you can use the envelopes sent to your home each month for this purpose or you can use one of the envelopes located in the back of all the church pews. Please, don’t wait to start giving your commitment until some later time. Start trusting God this month and join the rest of us in investing in eternity.

Wednesday praise celebrations
As a part of the month of November and the Thanksgiving season, we are going to have a special praise celebration during each Wednesday night service in the worship center. Many of you attend other Bible studies during the mid-week gathering, but for those that have not chosen one of our nearly sixty small groups to attend, I invite you to share this special hour with me in the main auditorium. We will be studying from the scripture a biblical lesson each week and then giving praise to God for His multiplied blessings. If the Lord is enthroned on the praises of His people (and He is - Psalm 22:3), then Wednesday service in our worship center is going to be the place to have a real encounter with our living Lord. I hope you will consider joining me to have your spiritual batteries recharged each Wednesday evening from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Bringing others to Jesus
One more thing I’d like to ask of all LMBC members and regular attenders. Would you begin praying immediately for God to let you bring at least one other person to Jesus Christ before the end of the winter season? It may be that you will bring someone to church with you where they hear the Gospel and be saved. Or, you may personally deal with a friend or family member in another setting where you can personally present the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There are souls to rescue that are within the reach of our own personal sphere of influence, if you’ll just ask God to open doors of opportunity for you to reach them. Wouldn’t it be great if this winter was the greatest winter in the history of our church for people coming to faith in Jesus Christ. It can be that way, if we’ll all make ourselves instruments in our Master’s hands.