Christmas Traditions

My family has a number of traditions and my wife and I are adding to them. For about as long as I can remember, my family has always had waffles and bacon on Christmas Eve. Since we weren't home over Christmas this year, we celebrated this tradition during our visit a couple weeks ago. I am a big fan of having breakfast for dinner and all I have to say is, don't knock it til you've tried it!

In my sermon this week I talked about another family tradition. Ever since I became a Christian in sixth grade and understood the truth and significance behind the Christmas narratives, I have insisted that the Magi (or wisemen) do not appear near the nativity scene in our house because it wasn't until some two years later that they finally reached Bethlehem. So, for example, our nativity scene is in the living room but the wisemen are in the kitchen. By the way, the title for the sermon was "Wisemen still Worship Him." Think about it.

I enjoy pizza and so whenever and however I can get my wife to allow us to have pizza, I do. One of the ways I've found to do this is to ask to have that for dinner whenever we have to decorate for the holidays (e.g. carving pumpkins, decorating the Christmas tree...). This year was my wife and my first for having a real Christmas tree at our place because in the past we've always gone to visit out families over Christmas. So our parents shipped us all of our Christmas decorations, we got literally the third to last tree on the lot on the Tuesday before Christmas, and ate pizza after decorating the tree on Friday night.

I know a lot of people like to watch movies such as "A Christmas Story" and "Miracle on 34th Street" this time of year. However, my Christmas movie watching tradition includes "Home Alone" and "The Santa Clause" (Tim Allen), which as of last night I was able to catch both of.

We had a Christmas Eve service at the church which I thought went very well and was well attended because of so many families who were in town visiting members of our congregation. That's one of the nice things about having an older congregation...kids and grandkids are expected to visit them over the holidays. During the service we had a series of readings through the Advent passages in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke along with singing traditional Christmas Carols and some special music by members of the church. We didn't have a special Christmas day service but instead Harmony and I were invited over to the house of a family from church for dinner (the noon meal).

The basketball team had a couple of tough games last week (jv went 1-1 and varsity went 0-2). This week I start a series through the OT historical book of Ezra which I'm very excited about, having been studying it now for the last few weeks. I'll let you know how it goes.

By God's Grace, Jeff

It's warmer but I get sick...go figure!

Harmony and I traveled to LA this past week for a wedding, to see family and friends and to escape the cold! The high in ND was in the teens the week before we left. People asked me what the temprature was going to be in So Cal and I would just replied "at least 50 degrees warmer than here!" I always seem to get sick whenever I travel from cold weather to warm weather and this time was no different. My Mom had the stomach flu just before I got out there and so I somehow caught it a few days later. Other than being laid up for one of the days, the trip was really nice. Harmony's best friend got married this past Saturday. We got to spend some good time with family and friends and got to eat at most of our favorite spots (i.e. In-&-Out, Carl's Jr., the Loft and Busy Bee).

I had a busy week leading up to us going out of town. In addition to basketball practices everyday after school, I had to get Harmony to the airport on Thursday (she flew out early to help with wedding preparations), had basketball games on Friday and Saturday, spent quite a bit of time on the phone trying to fix our Tivo (which I ended up having to send in to get a new one...hopefully it'll come soon!), getting ready myself to leave Sunday afternoon, not to mention preparing for church on Sunday! God provided and everything got done. He is good!

I finished 1 Peter two Sundays ago and next week will start a series through Ezra. A friend asked if I had any insights into 1 Peter after preaching through it the past few months and the one issue that resurfaces is suffering and specifically how to suffer in a way that pleases God.

The JV team is 5-1 and varsity is 2-3 (both lost last night). I am enjoying getting to know the players, coaches and parents. I have always enjoyed basketball and for some time have wanted to coach youth so this is a great opportunity. It certainly keeps me busy. For our game a week ago Saturday, we left before 11am and didn't get back until 9pm! At least both squads won.

I'm sure there's a lot I'm leaving out from the past couple weeks but I think that's enough for now anyway. Pray for us getting back into the swing of things after our week off.

By God's Grace, Jeff

Missing Mayor Daly

So we got our first good snow of the season on Saturday evening and night. I was prepared to have to shovel our driveway and sidewalk Sunday morning but what I wasn't prepared for was that none of the streets in town had been plowed! They still haven't been plowed two days later! Apparently the powers that be in ND don't think that 2-3 inches of snow is enough to bother with (though the highways were plowed). It makes me long for our days in the Chicago area when Mayor Daly would have hundreds of plows out by the time the first snowflake hit the pavement spreading salt all over the place...at least we won't have to worry about the corrosion.

On Saturday morning the basketball team had some scrimmages an hour and a half away in Drake and Anamoose (and yes there is a cartoon moose on a sign leading into the town). The team looked pretty good and some points and not so good at others. They still have a lot of work to do to be ready for the beginning of the season (which starts Friday!).

Harmony and I drove up to Minot Friday evening to have dinner with the pastor of Trinity EFCA and his wife. We had a very nice time getting to know them. On Sunday I drove up to Minot again to meet up with the pastor and we drove out together to a conference in Fargo. Dr. Carson from Trinity's New Testament Department was giving a talk to pastors on the use of biblical, systematic, historical and pastoral theology in our preaching. It was very informative and practical. I also got to meet a number of the other EFCA pastors in my general area (e.g. Devil's Lake and Rugby). I rode back yesterday evening with the associate pastor from Minot whose from St. Louis and so we swapped North Dakote cultural stories during the four hour drive. For example, some of the women say phrases that start with "Oh for" like "Oh for cute" or "Of for geez." Some of the guys in making suggestions use the expression "A guy could..." We had lots of laughs to say the least.

This past Sunday I preached on 1 Peter 5:6-9 about the importance of Christians responding appropriately to spiritual realities (i.e. who God is and who the Devil is). If you'd like to listen to it click here (I'm having problems uploading it...sorry).