Wise Men

Happy New Year!  It was great to see so many of you back at church yesterday after the holidays – even a grey and drizzly morning couldn’t dampen the sense of joy.  So good to see people reconnect, share holiday tales, and worship our great and very good God.

Some of my favorite moments…

• “I am the thing you’ve been looking for” – David pointed us to John 6, where over and over Jesus responds to people’s questions and grumblings, saying, “I’m it. I’m the thing you’ve been looking for.” It’s a great challenge as we begin a new year full of hopes and dreams and resolutions. What would change if we really believed that Jesus is the fulfillment of all our deepest longings?
• A packed house at 11:00, filled with some of the best-behaved kids around. I’m so grateful for the age-specific instruction and love that our kids get downstairs during most of the year, but I love the Sundays when we all get to worship together as one big family.
• Thinking about the Wise Men – all three or twelve or eight or however many of them there might have been. Their determination to worship the new-born King of the Jews is remarkable – as is the way that Jesus turned all of their expectations, as well as the meaning of the gifts they had brought, upside-down. What are the gifts we’re trying to bring to Jesus? How might he need to turn them on their heads, so that we can see that we’re the ones desperately in need of the gift he offers?
• Praying for Cindy as she leads a team to Kenya this week. I’m grateful for Cindy’s love for Kenya and its people and I’m inspired by her desire to be part of building God’s kingdom there. Also inspired by all the people who crowded onto the chancel to pray for her as she departs. This is the good stuff, folks.

I’m so grateful to be part of this community. And I’m so eager to see what God has in store for us in 2011.  Praying that we would receive it faithfully…