Christmas and Easter are two great, great times to be a preacher! I love speaking at these times and this Christmas will be no exception. Today, after playing golf with Gary Smith and Carl Brettle (I used my new clubs! Verdict?- the new clubs are going to be good, but I'll need to practice a bit more with them) and then watching the Ashes cricket highlights showing Paul Collingwood and Kevin Pietersen smashing the Aussie bowlers all over Adelaide, I put the finishing touches to a talk I'll use more than once in the next few weeks. My theme for this Christmas- starting on the Ignite website today and then tomorrow evening at Kingham Hill School, is MISSING OUT ON CHRISTMAS. Simply put, it examines how some contemporaries of the Nativity story missed out on the real message of Jesus, and how we are in danger of missing out for the same reasons:
The Innkeeper - too busy with other stuff
King Herod- afraid and jealous of a new King
The priests and scribes- couldn't be bothered to go to Bethlehem
The people of Nazareth-thought they knew it all, and overlooked Jesus
The Romans- worshipping idols
The people of Jerusalem- too religious and caught up in their religious practice
Sounds flippin good...wish i was gonna be there. Have a good Christmas season!!! as for me...hearing jingle bells in 30ยบ heat doesn't quite fit in my understanding of what Christmas should be like....weird!
Posted by: lois Richards | 12/07/2006 at 12:06 PM