Finally...excitement about Christmas has come!

Every year, I struggle with Christmas. Every year. It's not the shopping, decorating, spending and eating - although those things certainly get to me from time to time - but it's a burden I feel. I want to say something fresh and new and exciting. I've been coached to just 'tell the story', but I want it to be fresh...like seeing it for the first time again.

Christmas this year was a chore...until this week, when the light finally came on inside of me and I saw things I had never seen before. I'm (finally) so EXCITED about Christmas @ PCC this year! Let me give you a little preview:

This coming Sunday, I'm going to talk about THE real meaning of Christmas. Now, to be sure, every pastor in America will have a 'Jesus is the Real Reason for the Season' message. But this is not it, I assure you. You don't need to come to church for that. You've already heard it. Many of you already believe it. But I think I have discovered a better answer - a more complete answer - to the question, "What is the real meaning of Christmas?" It starts with Jesus, but it ends somewhere else. That ending - that ultimate reality of Christmas - ought to change the way we think and it should change the way we live our lives. On Sunday, I'll share my discovery with you.

December 19th, I'm going to talk about preparing ourselves for Christmas. Not the 'am I finished shopping' version, but the more spiritual variety. This may sound a little cheesy to you, but Christmas is serious business, from God's perspective. Humanity was preparing for decades, even centuries for Jesus' birth. So, are there ways that we can use these few days to be better prepared for what God wants to do in us? Even for people who are not yet convinced that Jesus is for real, if you are open to the notion, you can prepare yourself to hear what God wants to say to you this Christmas. We'll see the Bible's idea of how that works and I'll give you some practical things you can do in the final stretch before Christmas.

Christmas Eve. This has become one of the most incredible evenings of the entire year for our church. Our team, under Sandy Sabatini's faithful leadership, has been working on this event for months. This Christmas Eve will be a simple, familiar reminder about what God has done for us, and we will have and intimate, private moment to respond to Him.

The day after Christmas is a Sunday, and that day I'm REALLY excited about sharing from 2 obscure characters in the Bible that I've never taught about before. They responded to the coming of Jesus in the days after He was born and then we never see these 2 folks again. God wants to show us something significant through their rarely discussed actions. I can't wait to share with you what God showed me!

Don't miss Christmas at PCC this year! These next few weeks are going to be great!