Hello everyone! We hope December is treating you wonderfully and that your spirits are getting prepared for Christmas. This year's Christmas service will be held on Sunday, December 19 at our usual 10:30 AM time. There will be singing, children will read the Christmas story followed by a short kid-centric message that I hope will speak to all of us = both the young and the young and heart.
Additionally, we will serve communion to close out this special time together and close out our 2021 year.
This Saturday from 12:00 to 3:00, our children will have their annual "Comfy Christmas" party, which is designed to create spaces for them to just relax after a semester of school, while becoming increasingly familiar with the joy that is found in the Christmas story. We are grateful for Mrs. Kady and all she does in our Mountain Movers Ministries at High Places.
This Sunday (the 12th) we will have a baptism service shortly after our main meeting. Our friends across the street at Highland View Church are letting us use their baptristy this week. We plan to begin the baptism no later than 12:15. If you or someone you know would like to be baptized, or have questions about baptism, please see David (or just reply to this email).
Also this Sunday, to accomodate our baptism service, Carmen is asking our choir folks to show up early and practice, rather than doing practice after our main meeting as we have been. Look for an email or text from her in the coming days.
Finally, as a reminder, there will not be a "formal" High Places gathering on Sunday, December 26. We have traditionally given the Sunday between Christmas and New Year's as a day off to our staff. Often there are informal gatherings around coffee that morning however. If something is in the works, I will be sure to pass that information prior to the 26th.
Bible study will be happening tonight at the Grove at 7:00 PM and again next Wednesday, after which we will break until the new year. We have a couple of books that have been suggested for study and we will get that information out as soon as we have narrowed it down.
Thank you all for the TREMENDOUS spirit that has been circulating around High Places these past weeks. It has been wonderful to experience. Thank you for your service, your prayers, and your faith. Great things are happening all around, and even greater things are to come as we enter the advent of Christ, being born daily, in our hearts and in our midst as a FAITH FAMILY.
Love to you all,
David
“This is the homely heart of Incarnation, this meeting of God in man with men and women, this simple face of divine graciousness in ordinary life rather than in the hymns of church fathers or in the dry elaborations of theologians.” ― Eugene Kennedy, Joy of Being Human