I praise God for the truly wonderful and blessed Christmas season that we have just experienced together. Our Sunday Worship Services for Advent were especially meaningful this year. I believe that they helped us to keep our main focus where it belonged – upon God’s great gift of love in Jesus Christ. The traditional Christmas Eve Service, when we join with the congregation of the Vietnamese Love Baptist Church, is always very special anyway; but, it contained an added blessing this year, with the Christmas Story being presented in pageant form by children from both congregations. They were so excited about doing that as a part of the service, worked so hard on it and did an absolutely wonderful job! Right after the service on Christmas Eve, they already were asking about doing it again, and even bigger, for next year! Then, finally, we had the privilege of gathering for Worship on Christmas morning, where we were blessed with a good attendance for the service and with several selections of special music sung beautifully by our Choir. The Spirit of Christ truly was present with us and touched our hearts. I would like to express my deep thanks to all those who gave of their time and of themselves to make this Christmastime one that will be with us long into the New Year.
A new year is before us, and I believe that it is going to be a good one for USBC. Over the past few months, we have seen some signs that God is moving among us in new ways and doing some new things in the life of our church. Let us pray that this is only the beginning of even greater things to come. I want to share with you one “new” thing that will be starting up right after the first of the year. I have asked John Ingram to serve as the coordinator of a Children/Youth Ministry Team. We are working together now to assemble a group of about four to six volunteers, with a heartfelt love for these age groups, to establish and to oversee regular programs and activities for them. This is an area of ministry, where great things can come from it. It will help us to able to minister more effectively not only to those children and youth who presently are a part of our church; but, it also will enable us to reach out to more families of children and youth and to touch them with Christ’s love. If you think that God possibly might be leading you to be involved in some way in this ministry, contact John and me about it. One further note at this time: I am in the process of putting together some plans and goals for both our church and for myself, as your pastor, for the coming year. I hope to be able to share some of those with you soon.
I would like to give everyone an update on the progress toward obtaining our new church sign. As you know, we received the official approval of our application for the permit for the sign from Montgomery County on October 21. Since then, we have been working to put together the necessary funds for the total project, estimated to be approximately $10,000.00. As a result of your generosity, our Sign Fund now has reached the amount of $10,009.50! Praise the Lord! Because of that, we proceeded to place the order for the new sign with J. M. Stewart Signs on December 22. The actual time for manufacture and delivery will be about eight to ten weeks. Shortly after the first of the year, we will get the design details and the specifications for the foundation/footer, so that this can be done, when the weather permits. This has been something that our church has needed for a long time. I am thankful that God has opened the door now for us to get this done. What will be the benefit of having this new sign? I see several. It will raise the “visibility” of our church to our surrounding community. It will let people know that there is life at USBC and that things are happening here. It will provide information about the times for our regular worship services and ministries for those who might want to attend. Because of that, just a few more people will “drop by” to visit with us. And, we can still place those special messages that bring hope and encouragement to those who pass by and possibly point them toward Jesus Christ.
Finally, I want to praise the Lord for your faithfulness and for your commitment to the cause of missions. This year, you gave $4,047.75 for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions! All I can say is, “Hallelujah!”
God is faithful. Let us be faithful to Him. May we glorify God through Jesus Christ in all that we do every day.
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