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Dear Friends,

Christmas is a wonderful season. Christmas can also be a difficult and stressful season. It’s a season full of great opportunities and increased goodwill. And, when you combine high expectations, a packed calendar, extra expenses, and family . . . it can also be a difficult and painful season.

Beginning this Sunday, and through the Advent/Christmas season, we’re going to take a break from 1 Peter to focus on “The Joys & Pains of Christmas.” Unfortunately, it can be a challenge for us as Christians to meet Christ and focus on him during the longest Christ-focused calendar season of the year. Why is that? Is it possible for Christmas time to be a special sacred time of worship, healing, and spiritual growth? That’s going to be our focus, goal, and hope this Christmas here at Church of the Redeemer. This Sunday, and next week in our Daily Worship Devotions, we begin by considering “Christmas & Family.” 

Christmas is especially a “family time.” We see that clearly in EVERY Hallmark Christmas movie. Even Die Hard (yes, a Christmas movie), has a focus on family and familial longings and hopes. It’s a time where we gather with grandparents, parents, siblings, children, grandchildren, and extended family. For many, it’s a time when we especially miss or think about family members who are no longer with us, can’t be with us this year, or who are estranged from us. We want each Christmas to be a special and memorable family time. And, yes, for most/many, we are somewhere on the spectrum between dreading family time or praying that we can just survive Christmas time without things getting worse than they already are.

So, as you prepare your heart, mind, and soul for worship this Sunday, take some time to read, reflect, and meditate on the following passages that concern family, family + Christianity, and the first Christmas. Jesus’ family struggled too. Jesus’ family experienced the joys of family – and also the pain, disappointment, frustration, sin, and brokenness of family. See Luke 2:25-38, Mark 3:31-35, and John 19:25-27.

During this special season, I especially look forward to worshiping with you, my church family, this Sunday.

Yours in Christ,

Pastor Ewan

Dear Friends,

Thanksgiving is almost upon us!  Wow.  Where does the time go?!

As you think about Thanksgiving, do you:

• Sigh the “Oh, no!” of unpreparedness?
• Smile in anticipation of a gathered family?
• Recoil at the reminder that Thanksgiving is the starting pistol for the chaos of Christmas?
• Salivate at the thought of feasting?
• Look forward to overindulging on football?

Here at Redeemer, the Sunday before Thanksgiving is a special Sunday where we celebrate God’s work and provision. This year, we also celebrate that Church of the Redeemer is 22 years old and we’ve been worshiping here on this property for 17 years.

Bluegrass Sunday is a special ritual here at Church of the Redeemer. We have Bluegrass music, a chili cook-off, and we collect an Offering of Thanksgiving Prayers. It’s fitting that we also respond to God with thankful service; that’s why we receive the Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes on this Sunday. He has given us so much, it’s fitting that we give back. Read More

Dear Friends,

I don’t often quote the Westminster Confession of Faith in my Pastor Weekly email, but the following section has been on my mind as we consider our 1 Peter text for this Sunday and next week in our Daily Worship Devotions.

All saints, that are united to Jesus Christ their Head, by his Spirit, and by faith, have fellowship with him in his grace, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory: and, being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other’s gifts and graces, and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man.
Westminster Confession of Faith, 26.1 The Communion of Saints.

We live in a very consumeristic age. The world around us forms us to think of us as consumers. We have been told, and we believe, and the market reinforces that “The Consumer is King.” Our sinful flesh is predisposed to not just accept this position as “Kings or Queens,” but to demand it and protect it. We will not give up our thrones without a battle!

How does this impact us as we consider our participation and membership in the Body of Christ and the local church family?

Take some time to read and reflect upon the quote above from the Westminster Confession of Faith.

• How do you feel about the first section – the part about being united to Jesus?
• How do you feel about the second section – and the “obligation” it states?

Reflect on that as you read and consider God’s Word to us in 1 Peter 2:1-12. In the context of this week’s passage, what does it mean for you – and for us – to heed God’s urging in verse 11: Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul?

I look forward to worshiping together as the Body of Christ this Sunday.

Yours in Christ,

Pastor Ewan