An Advent Prayer
So, December is here (with a snow-flake or two this morning!) and the so called “holiday season” is upon us. I hope you’ll spend some time with this “prayer.” It’s a reminder of the rhythm of life that God has for us – a healthy, holistic, slower-than-you-think-you-can-manage(!) rhythm …
Happy Advent!
The lord is my pace setter . . . I shall not rush
He makes me stop for quiet intervals
He provides me with images of stillness which restore my serenity
He leads me in the way of efficiency through calmness of mind and his guidance is peace
Even though I have a great many things to accomplish each day, I will not fret, for his presence is here
His timelessness, his all importance will keep me in balance
He prepares refreshment and renewal in the midst of my activity by anointing my mind with his oils of tranquility
My cup of joyous energy overflows
Truly harmony and effectiveness shall be the fruits of my hours for I shall walk in the Pace of my Lord and dwell in his house for ever.
A version of Psalm 23 from Japan, as reprinted in Mother Teresa, Life in the Spirit: Reflections, Meditations, Prayers
An Idea for Your Devotional Time in Advent
The season of Advent began yesterday and so we are officially in a time of expectation and waiting for the coming of Jesus! It is, as the songwriter said, “the most wonderful time of the year!” However, as you know, it can be a season that brings great anxiety, pressure, and even depression.
Last week, I encouraged you to “re-set” the rhythm of your life to the quiet waiting of Advent. Now, I’d like to offer one way you can put action to that. This is a great tradition you might want to try out during your personal prayer time in the next four weeks. It’s a great experience for families as well.
You can easily make your own Advent Candle to help focus your prayer and devotional time during this season. Get a tall, slender candle – something like a 12 inch dinner candle.
Then take a ruler and felt tip pen. Start about an inch from the bottom so there’s enough candle to stand up. Then mark all the way up the candle, twenty-six evenly spaced segments. The candle in the picture is, of course, store-bought, but it gives you the idea!
You can then use your felt tip pen to mark the dates. Starting at the top with December 1, all the way to 24 at the bottom.
Then, choose a time every day when you can burn one segment. A slender candle takes 10-20 minutes, depending on the length, width and quality of wax.
What to do while the candle burns? You could use the time to sit in silence, or read, or pray. You might make a family commitment to sit together silently, praying for one another. Advent is traditionally a time of waiting: perhaps you can pray every day for a person or place that is waiting for news, or peace, or healing.
If you’d like a daily schedule of scripture readings for Advent, here is a good list to work from.
I hope you’ll take the next two days to prepare for this “new” tradition! It’s actually very old, but it’s been a new experience for me and my family, and we’ll be doing it again this season.
If you have any ideas or suggestions for focal points or things to contemplate during the burning of each segment, please share them in the comments below.
Looking Forward to the Advent Season
This Sunday, November 28, is the first Sunday in Advent. It is a season of preparation, a season of waiting, and a season of expectation. It sets the stage for Christmas, but it’s important that we recognize it is not the same as Christmas.
Popular culture knows something about the true meaning of Christmas, but it knows little to nothing of the meaning of Advent. It’s a danger for the church that we end up in the same position. In our rush to the manger, we skim over the anticipation of Advent. We might want to fast-forward to “Joy to the World,” forsaking the plaintive cry of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”
For centuries, the Christian community has viewed the experience of Advent as a way of preparing our hearts for Christmas morning. I want to invite you to be a little “counter-cultural” this season! When all around you are Christmas decorations and muzak-interpretations of the great carols(!), remember Advent. Beginning this Sunday, we’ll begin a four-week series of worship experiences designed around the themes of Advent. We’ll be talking about what it means to enter into the expectation and longing for the coming of Jesus. My prayer is that we all experience a spiritual “re-boot!” - that the rhythm of our lives will be recalibrated so we’re able to experience deeply the truth of God with us!
I invite you to the worship gathering this Sunday at 10:00am. Even more, I invite you to enter into the season of Advent every day, beginning this Sunday!
A Prayer for Advent
In this season of expectation
We prepare to welcome Christ Jesus, Messiah
Into the bustle of our lives
and the hard to find moments of solitude
We prepare to welcome Christ Jesus, Messiah
Into our homes and situations
along with friends and families
We prepare to welcome Christ Jesus, Messiah
Into our hearts, and those often hidden parts of our lives
We prepare to welcome Christ Jesus, Messiah
For beneath the surface of your story
is an inescapable fact
You entered this world
as vulnerable as any one of us
in order to nail that vulnerability to the cross.
Our fears, our insecurities and our sins
all that can separate us from God
exchanged by your Grace for Love.
We cannot comprehend the reasoning
only marvel that Salvation comes to us
through a baby born in a stable,
and reaches out to a world in need.
[Prayer written by John Birch]
Behold the Lamb of God, December 5th @ 3p in the Historic State Theater
We are entering practice for our 4th year’s production of “Behold the Lamb of God: The True Tall Tale of the Coming King.” This is a great opportunity to invite your friends to a community event where they will hear the Gospel story presented in a unique way.
“Behold the Lamb of God” is a concept concert written by singer/songwriter Andrew Peterson. A concept concert is a collection of songs that tell a complete story. (A famous example of this would be Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.”)
Behold the Lamb of God tells the story of the anticipation of Christ’s coming (Advent) and His birth, while foreshadowing His life, death, and resurrection. The style of the production mixes elements of acoustic folk and bluegrass, with American rock. We will begin the show with “Songwriters in the Round,” a singer/songwriter showcase that will feature these area artists: Mark and Nicole Melloan, Robby and Tricia Payne, Tara Steele, Matt and Joanna Black, and Josh Brown. In true Bridge fashion, there will be coffee served.
Behold the Lamb of God Documentary
Behold the Lamb of God will be on December 5th @ 3p at Elizabethtown’s Historic State Theater. The cost is $5 and half of the ticket costs will go to benefit Feeding America’s backpack program. Hope you will be able to attend with family and friends!
Here’s a clip from a previous performance. (Dates and times on video do not apply.)
Update on Renovations at the Nexus Building
I want to let you know what’s going on at the building. Over the next two weeks, contractors will be at the building working on connecting the gas for heat (yes, it seems it’s that time of year!) and hooking up all the lights in the multi-purpose room, among other things. But, as it’s been throughout this project, most of the labor is going to be done by volunteers!
I’d like to ask you to take a look at the link below, please. It shows a list of jobs remaining to complete this phase of the renovation. The goal is to finish by Thanksgiving!
As you look down the list, you’ll see one or two things you could help with — I’m sure of it! If you can give any time in the next two weeks, day or evening, please send an email to info@bridgecommunity.org and let us know your availability.
There will be two more organized work days:
- This Thursday (11/11) evening from 6:30 – 8:30
- Next Saturday (11/20) from 9am – 2pm with lunch provided!
If you can come for either of these group work times, great – please send an email to info@bridgecommunity.org if you plan on coming.
But what if you can’t come on either of these organized times? Well, that’s where we’ll be flexible! If you can come and do a job or two – any time – an hour here or there – please let us know and we’ll do everything we can to make sure you have the tools and materials needed. Just send us an email with the times you can volunteer and we’ll set it up!
Thanks for all you’ve done so far! Look forward to working with you a couple more times before the holiday season begins!
Peace
Wayne
As a “PS,” I want to share with you just SOME of the things going on at the building in the next two months …
These are just a few of the reasons to put in the time to finish the space! Hope you can come help out!
Work on the Nexus Building
We’re almost there! Just a few remaining projects stand in the way of us completing the initial stage of renovations.
In the next couple of weeks, there will be contractors working on the last of the plumbing, hooking up all the lights in the worship space, and (hopefully) painting the rest of the ceiling. With that work happening, why don’t we pull together and complete all the “little” jobs that remain?! It will be great to have this phase finished and be able to “relax” going in to the holiday season. So, here’s the goal: finish all the remaining tasks before Thanksgiving.
Can we do it? If we work together in the next 3 weeks, the answer is yes! Below, you’ll see a copy of all the remaining jobs and projects. Some are as simple as 30 minute, one-person jobs; others need a few sets of hands, but can still be completed in an hour or two. So, in the month of November, we’re scheduling a couple of work nights and at least one Saturday. If we can have a good turnout on these days, we’ll finish it!
The first work night is Tuesday, November 2, from 6:30 – 9:00 …
Take a look at the list of jobs below. How many can we cross off the list after Tuesday??
——-
Tasks to be completed:
* Updated October 25
- Install stainless steel shelves in cafe serving area
- Trim around doors – office, conference room, kitchen and mechanical room.
- T-mold transition piece in conference room thresh-hold
- Put down quarter round at base of front glass
- Cove-base (baseboard) in cafe serving area and around bottom of cabinets
- Cove-base in back hallway
- Install bottom piece (the “sweep”) to seal back door
- Install push bar door latch on back door
- Door pulls on main worship entrance
- Grout the ceramic tile inside back door
- Install reducer molding piece in worship side-entrance thresh-holds
- Back-splash tiles in women’s bathroom
- Caulk top of tile baseboard in bathrooms
- Finish partitions in bathrooms
- Install lock on mechanical room door in air-lock entry
- Paint door to mechanical closet in air-lock entry
- Paint two interior doors in KidSpace (mechanical room and passage to nursery)
- Paint door to mechanical closet in office
- Paint classroom doors and bathroom doors
- Tape and mud walls in mechanical room
- Finish drywall in front closet
- Tape and mud walls in closets
Volunteer? Or Disciple?
What do you consider yourself? A “volunteer” or a “disciple”?
What’s the difference? What do I mean? I want to refer you to this blog post by Jamie Arpin-Ricci exploring volunteerism as a poor substitute for Christian discipleship. What are your thoughts? What can we do in our community to avoid the “volunteer” approach to mission?
I look forward to responding to your comments below …
Commissioning of Open House This Sunday
This Sunday during our worship gathering, we’ll be having a very special commissioning service for the people of Open House. The leaders and all those connected in community with Open House have been invited to worship with us. We’ll be praying for them as they embark on a new stage in their journey as a church!
Open House is the first church plant of The Bridge. From our start in 2004, we have understood our calling to be a “church that plants churches” — to become many instead of mega. A lot of prayer and listening to God from 2005-2008 led to this new thing that would become “Open House!” Eight people from within our community began meeting together in the Fall of 2008, dreaming about a fresh expression of church that would reach more people and connect them to Jesus!
After a season of prayer and forming their initial identity, they began gathering “publicly” for worshp in the Spring of ’09. Saturday evenings worshiping together in the old Ministry Center were interrupted just a bit(!) as we made the transition to the new facility last fall. But after a brief time of meeting in homes, as soon as the front of the new Nexus Building was available, they began worshiping there. They continue to worship in the front cafe at the building each Saturday night at 6:00.
I encourage you to read more of the story of Open House at their website.
It began as a group of people from The Bridge. It has grown into a unique community with it’s own spiritual DNA. They are connecting with new people and continually growing! It is an exciting time in the life of Open House – and that means it’s an exciting time in the life of The Bridge Community, because we’ll always be one church! I hope you’ll be there this Sunday as we celebrate what God has done and look forward to what he’ll do next!
Youth Kick Off Party!
A message from the Youth Leadership Team:
We want to share with you some exciting news about youth ministry developing @ The Bridge!! We’re having a Kick-Off Party this Saturday from 6:00-9:00pm outside on the grounds of the Nexus Building. It will be a fun evening with games – ping pong, air hockey, foosball, and pool to name a few – hot dogs, s’mores and more!! We’ll have a fire pit for roasting marshmallows and hot dogs.
Youth in grades 6-12 are invited to come and bring their friends. Everyone who signed up to volunteer with the youth should come also. Let’s all get to know each other better!!
You’ll be hearing more and more about things happening in our Youth Community soon! Let’s make this first event a great time together!!
If you have any questions about the party this Saturday or anything else going on with middle and high school ministry, contact the Youth Leadership Team by email.
Fall Clothing Drive: The “Closet”
Preparations are underway for a great event this fall – we’re calling it “The Bridge Community Closet.” We’re doing a clothing drive, looking for donations of gently used fall and winter clothing. Then, on October 23 at 8:00am, we’ll open the doors of the Nexus Building to welcome anyone and everyone to get the items they need. And it’s all free!
A team of volunteers has organized the event and they are leading the way to making it happen. But, we need all the help we can get! How would you like to help prepare for the event, doing behind the scenes things like sorting and organizing clothes? Or how about spreading the word about the event and helping us get more donated clothing? We have flyers you can post at work or in your neighborhood or small informational cards you can give to friends and family to let them know how to give their un-needed clothes. Click here to contact one of the volunteer leaders and they can let you know how to plug in.
This Saturday, September 18 from noon until 4:00pm, we’ll have our first of two “drop-off” days. The Nexus Building will be open and people can bring their clothes to donate. The second drop-off day is October 16.
You can read all the details about the event here. If you’re ready to get involved or donate, fill out the form here.
As the days get shorter, the weather gets cooler, and you settle into your Fall “routine,” please consider how you can be a part of this special event. In the next few weeks, you’ll probably be making the transition from summer to winter clothes. As you do, set aside some of those items you don’t need and move them from your closet to our “Closet!”
