What an Amazing Christmas!

Here are some reflections from the past few days:

- I'm sure that it could have been better, but I'm not sure how! It all began with Christmas eve Services. We had 5 services and we saw life change at all of them. A total of 19 people made decisions for Christ and many of those were first time decisions to become followers of Christ!

- With all of the illnesses floating around it was God's provision that everything went as well as it did. Adrienne had no voice, and Greg's voice barely hung on until the end. I'm not sure of the final count, but my guess is around 3,000 people. The message was a clear presentation of the Good News of Christ. Anthony's testimony was powerful!

- We gave our families the NLT 1 year Bible and asked them all to read through it with us this next year. I can't wait to see what we all learn! As Palm Valley Church does this together, I can't wait to see what impact it has on our community.

- We were able to see nearly all the members of both families over the weekend. It was very cool to have 34 people at our home for dinner on Christmas. We really missed those who couldn't be here, especially my sister and brother in Colorado and their families.

- We had a great time launching rockets in the back yard. Not having neighbors made it a lot safer, though one did end up on the roof!

- It was crazy but fun in the office today. I had some great conversations with people today. There was also an opportunity to stretch my faith as well.

- Tomorrow I go in for my 2nd epidural injection. I'll be out most of the day. I'm nervous about this one since it will be the first time we have done it in my neck. I know that God is in control, it's just the not knowing how I will respond to the shot that has me a bit anxious.

I hope you had a great Christmas too!

What's Wrong With Christmas?

As I mentioned in a previous post, I love Christmas. It would be so easy for me to over the top buying Christmas presents (OK, I do somewhat, especially for my buys and my wife Paige). For me, giving gifts at Christmas is a way to express my love. God gave us the greatest gift, Jesus. So what's wrong with Christmas? If you didn't know, several elements of the Christmas story as we typically celebrate it are not exactly as they originally happened. Here's a few:

- Jesus wasn't born on December 25th
- The wise men didn't come to the manger
- There was no little drummer boy
- Not a Christmas tree in sight

Does it really matter? If you're explaining the story from a Biblical perspective, it does. Read the story in Luke 2 and see what it actually says. That said, practically speaking, it doesn't matter! What matters is that we celebrate the greatest gift ever given!

Christmas is the day we choose to celebrate as the day Jesus was born. What matters is the event, not the date. The other details are secondary to the story. The focus is on the fact that God became man to live among us. He gave us an example to follow by His actions, then paid the price for our forgiveness so that we could reconnect with God. There is no greater gift that can be given! We give gifts to each other to commemorate this event.

The only day that should be a bigger party is Easter. So, party on, and give!

Guess Who's Coming for Christmas?!

I love Christmas. I love nearly everything about it. I mostly enjoy hanging out with family I don't always get a chance to see. This Christmas I'm going to get a lot of that :-)!

We typically alternate Thanksgiving and Christmas between the two families. This year is with Paige's side of the family, or at least that's what we were planning until...

Tonight was my niece Amanda's graduation! We are so proud of her. My sister and her husband are in town for the event and decided to take a golf vacation and stay until Christmas.

Of course my mom was coming over for the graduation, so we got her to stay for a few weeks, including Christmas.

When my oldest sister found out my sister from Texas was coming, she and her oldest daughter decided to come too.

Then my little sister called and said since everyone was coming, her family would be coming too.

Since most of the family was coming, I called my other sister and my brother to see if they could come too. Unfortunately, neither could, but there will be four of the six of us together for Christmas. That's pretty rare and I will take full advantage of the opportunity.

I know this threw a curve ball to Paige's family (Sorry!), but I can't pass up this opportunity to spend with my family. I can't wait to share what we are doing for everyone for Christmas!

So, along with Paige's family, and now mine, we're having over thirty people at the house for Christmas dinner. Eleven will be staying here.

My favorite Christmas tradition is getting up early to open presents. Before we start we read the Christmas story from Luke 2 in the Bible. We've done this since the boys were in pre-school. It gets us started right, focusing on Jesus - the reason for the season! What's your favorite tradition?

I can't wait!!! :-)

Palm Valley Church Rocks!

There were so many volunteers it was awesome! The services (4 of them) were off the hook! Not just the main service, but the kids areas as well. Greg really brought home the Gospel message talking about Light (Jesus). The tech guys would say that there were a lot of problems, but the lighting and camera effects I saw were great! Michael wasn't there to see all of his hard work come to fruition, but it was great (he'll have to watch the video). Twelve people that we know of accepted Christ. One of the stories was particularly amazing and a true Christmas miracle. And all that was just Christmas eve weekend!

Christmas was amazing! I love that we begin Christmas in our family with prayer and reading the Christmas story from Luke 2. Then we celebrate God's gift to us by giving gifts to each other. This we set a pretty low dollar limit so that we can contribute more inthe spring to our building fund at the church. I loved the creativity required to give great gifts and stay within the budget. I'm usually the biggest offender when we set limits, but I love giving gifts to my family. I actually stayed within budget this year, and Santa did too! Even though there wasn't a lot of cash spent, there sure were a lot of gifts! The creativity was great, and it was a lot of fun stuff, not just practical things.

I hope that you had a great Christmas celebrating God's gift of Light through Christ Jesus.