Saturday Smile - Resolve to Be More Helpful

Taking a Break - Back on Saturday

Monday Music - Sean Colvin: Love Came Down

CLICK HERE OR ON IMAGE ABOVE

Sunday Supplication - The Savior of the World

Eternal Father, you gave your incarnate Son, Jesus, to be our salvation. Place within our hearts, we pray, the love of him who is the Savior of the world.

Thank you for the forgiveness and renewal you have given to us through Christ Jesus.  Help us to extend forgiveness to each other and help us grow into a redemptive and healing community. Help us to have a redemptive and healing impact on the world around us.

Help us, O God, to find ourselves in you. Give us faith that makes us able to commit all things to you.
Give us hearts to love your will and to serve your purposes. Shape and strengthen us to follow Jesus wherever he leads. Whether by life or death, may Christ be exalted in us. Help us to press on to take hold of all you have in mind for our lives.

We pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Saturday Smile - Reindeer Reprisal

Friday Favorites - Christmas at Valley

Looking forward to worshiping with friends and family at Valley this year. You're invited! Take your pick of either Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning. We'll be doing the same one-hour service both times. Merry Christmas!

Thursday Thinking - Healing and Social Good

Thanks to my wife, Cheri, for sharing the link to this thought-provoking and helpful interview. Let me encourage you to, as you watch it, consider how your faith and your commitment to a church community could both comfort and stretch you.

How can the US recover after the negative, partisan presidential election of 2016? Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the morals that form the basis of our political choices. In conversation with TED Curator Chris Anderson, he describes the patterns of thinking and historical causes that have led to such sharp divisions in America — and provides a vision for how the country might move forward. CLICK HERE OR ON IMAGE ABOVE

Wednesday Words - O Emmanuel

O come, O come, and be our God-with-us
O long-sought With-ness for a world without,
O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.
Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken Name
Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame,
O quickened little wick so tightly curled,
Be folded with us into time and place,
Unfold for us the mystery of grace
And make a womb of all this wounded world.
O heart of heaven beating in the earth,
O tiny hope within our hopelessness
Come to be born, to bear us to our birth,
To touch a dying world with new-made hands
And make these rags of time our swaddling bands.

"O Emmanuel" by Malcolm Guite, from Sounding the Seasons, © Copyright 2012.

Tuesday Tome - Dickens

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is one of the most popular stories of the Christmas Season. Movies, plays, musicals, animations, even Muppets--this story has probably been told and retold in more ways that just about anything besides the Bible. And just as the Bible, it is one of the most purchased and least read books in the world. Dickens' A Christmas Carol, though a well-known story, has not been read as a book as often and as widely as it deserves to be. That's too bad because it is a truly beautifully written novella, and no retelling I've seen is as rich and interesting as the original.

If you've never read the book before, let me encourage you to get a copy and make it one of the special things you do this Christmas season. It won't take you long to read, because it's only just over a hundred pages. You can download it to your Kindle or Nook for free, and you can buy paper and ink copy for less than $10.

My recommendation would be that you choose the good old-fashioned book option. Read it in the evening by lamplight in a comfy chair when the house is nice and quiet. Being near a fireplace and having a cup of hot tea close at hand are also recommended for best results.

You will find this classic story to be well worth your time, and you will discover there is much more to this old story than you had imagined.

Monday Music - Shaw Chorale: Carol of the Bells

One of my favorite carols and albums from my childhood Christmases...

CLICK HERE OR ON IMAGE TO PLAY

Sunday Supplication - Your Presence with Us

Heavenly Father, make us aware of your presence in our lives and purify our hearts and minds. We pray that we would find our identity and our home in your Son Jesus Christ as we await the Day of his appearing. Sustain us and shape us by the power of your Holy Spirit.

Thank you for your grace and mercy. Lead us away from temptation.  Deliver us from evil.  Forgive us our sins. And give us the grace and courage to forgive others just as we you have forgiven us.

Thank you, O God, for your promise to be with your people. Give us an awareness of your presence with us today. Grant us the strength and the faith we need to face the challenges and circumstances of our lives. When we are frightened, guard our hearts and minds with the peace of Christ Jesus. Protect us from discouragement, and encourage us, by your Holy Spirit, through your Word, your people, your promises, and all that is beautiful and true. 

Through Christ, we pray. Amen.

Saturday Smile - Craig's List

Friday Favorites - Have Fun, Do Good

World Vision Weekend before Christmas 
Comedy & Music Show 
Sunday, December 18 at 4 p.m.
The ComedySportz Theater
Calhoun Square, 3001 Hennepin Ave. South, Minneapolis

Thursday Thinking - Perspective and Perception

TEDxPSU February 2016 - Julia Galef 

Perspective is everything, especially when it comes to examining your beliefs. Are you a soldier, prone to defending your viewpoint at all costs — or a scout, spurred by curiosity? Julia Galef examines the motivations behind these two mindsets and how they shape the way we interpret information, interweaved with a compelling history lesson from 19th-century France. When your steadfast opinions are tested, Galef asks: "What do you most yearn for? Do you yearn to defend your own beliefs or do you yearn to see the world as clearly as you possibly can?"