Wow!  It seems like Advent is just flying by.  Didn't we just put the Advent wreath out?  These are the days I miss having the kids at home.  So many of our family traditions revolved around watching our children and family grow more each year.  And we kind of see that in miniature each Advent season in worship.  The 1st Sunday we had the preschool class come up, light the wreath, and read the Advent lesson, then the 2nd Sunday we had the younger elementary class, and the 3rd Sunday we had the older elementary class.  It serves as a snapshot of how kids and families grow.  Well, this week the teens will come forward (and you know how much they "love" doing this)!  I thought it was pretty cool when Courtney Stine asked all the children and teens to come down front.  There are a lot of them!  And it was a great reminder of how much I love being part of a church that loves children so much.

This Sunday is the 4th Sunday of Advent, and our reading for the day is The Story of Mary from Luke 1:26-38.  It's another amazing story of great faith in our Sovereign God.  And once again we see that there's so much "glory" in the Christmas story -- paired with an equal amount of humility.  We see great glory in the Incarnation of Christ, and yet, in His becoming human, we also see great humility.  And we'll see all of that in just one verse this Sunday, John 1:14, which is one of the most important verses in the entire Gospel of John.  After all, the Glory of Christ is what Advent is pointing us to.  So in this last week of Advent, let's look for it.  See you Sunday, Dr. Dave

P.S. I hope you enjoyed listening to our Adult Christmas Choir last Sunday.  Kudos to Tom Gardner for leading and conducting.  Please thank him for such a wonderful performance!

And there's so many to thank for the blessing of our Children's Christmas Choir.  Jonathan, Andy, Courtney, Kirk, Deb, and all did an amazing job and the kids sounded great!