You're on the Invitation List!

Today's epistle lesson from "The Daily Office" readings claims that we have received an invitation "to participate in the life of God." A little later in this same passage, we are called to confirm God's invitation to us. We get to choose whether or not we will receive all that God wants to give to us - "firm footing" as we participate in God's inbreaking kingdom in the here and now.

As I thought about this invitation in today's scripture reading, I couldn't help but to think about the couple who recently attended a State dinner at the White House without an invitation exposing a major security breach that should never have happened. This just goes to show how important invitations and being on the guest list really are.

In this Season of Advent, this scripture from II Peter offers us the good news that we are invited to attend the coming of Jesus Christ into our world. The invitation is extended to shepherds, to wisemen, and to all who are willing to make the journey to Bethlehem and bow down in worship and adoration of the Christ Child.

In this first week of Advent, consider yourself on the official guest list to join the nativity. During these four weeks, let's journey together to Bethlehem. There's room for all of us around the manger.

II Peter 1 (The Message)

3-4 Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.

5-9 So don't lose a minute in building on what you've been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can't see what's right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.

10-11 So, friends, confirm God's invitation to you, his choice of you. Don't put it off; do it now. Do this, and you'll have your life on a firm footing, the streets paved and the way wide open into the eternal kingdom of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.

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Sunday Worship Preview - December 6

December 6 - (8:15 A.M. & 11:00 A.M. Traditional Services & 9:45 A.M. Praise Service) & Wednesday, December 9 (6:30 P.M. Casual Service @ Crossroads, 2095 Fair Avenue)

Sermon - "Moving Life toward the Day of Christ"

Features - 2nd Sunday of Advent & Holy Baptism (9:45)

Scripture - Philippians 1:3-11 & Luke 1:68-79

1st Sunday of Advent Prayer

Collect of the Day: First Sunday of Advent


Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

An Advent Message from Bishop Bruce Ough

KEEPING ADVENT

Grace and peace to you from God our Creator and Christ Jesus whose advent we await.

I greet you in this Season of Expectation on behalf of the West Ohio Conference Center staff, the district superintendents and the pastors and laity of nearly 1,200 congregations in the West Ohio Conference.

The familiar Advent hymn, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” (one of my favorites) perfectly captures the spirit of this season. Even though the risen Christ is among us, and we dwell in His presence, still we long for a nearer and greater vision of Jesus and his return among us – the Second Advent.

Bernard of Clairvaux, the great twelfth century Cistercian abbot, once wrote about Advent in his Sermons on the Song of Songs:

“During my frequent ponderings on the burning desire with which the patriarchs longed for the incarnation of Christ, I am stung with sorrow and shame… Very soon now there will be great rejoicing as we celebrate the feast of Christ’s birth. But how I wish it were inspired by his birth! All the more, therefore, do I pray that the intense longing of those men of old, their heartfelt expectation, may be enkindled in me.”Where in all of our seasonal “holiday” celebrations, we might wonder, is Jesus? Confronted with an increasingly secular celebration – a Christless Christmas – it would be easy to sigh along with Bernard: “But how I wish it were inspired by his birth!”

But the abbot points us away from such lamentation and dismay and towards a more positive road – a pathway I encounter in every healthy, vital congregation. For us, even if for no one else, the Advent season is:


•A time when our longing for God can be enkindled in us.
•A time when a restlessness and homelessness is stirred up in our souls and we are reminded that we are “strangers and foreigners on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13), whose only true home is in God.
•A time when the fires of our passion for Christ can be stoked until they blaze.
•A time when we seek nothing other than to “love God with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, and with all of your mind, and with all of your strength…and love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31).
•A time when we are reminded to keep Advent every day of our lives.


I rejoice and give thanks that hundreds of United Methodist congregations in the West Ohio Conference display an intense longing for the incarnation of Christ and enkindle such a spirit within their members and constituents. For it is this spirit of longing for and seeking God that undergirds our mission of making and equipping disciples of Jesus Christ. For it is this spirit of longing for and seeking God that calls us to life in the Kingdom – the radical and transformative reality which Jesus came to inaugurate.

I pray that you will keep Advent in your life during this season and every day of every season.

Bishop Bruce R. Ough

November 8 Sermon - "Big Spender"

Sermon by Pastor Robert McDowell

Post November 22 Sermon Reflections

In this past Sunday's sermon, I referred to a humorous website called, Graph Jam which includes fictitious surveys on various topics.

In the sermon, I referred to this website's survey on time spent on completing a project. This was used as an illustration under reason #2 why Jesus teaches that we need not worry - Worry doesn't solve anything.

"And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?" - Matthew 6:27

Celebrating Christmas a Little Early

OK. I admit it. The McDowells' like to celebrate Christmas early by decorating the house a week before Thanksgiving.

It's odd that we do such a thing in our home since Penny and I are both liturgically minded and we believe in the importance of the Advent season which includes hymns such as "O Come O Come Emmanuel" and "Come Thou Long Expected Jesus." My sermons always include a counter cultural Christmas restraint to help us prepare for the coming of Jesus into the world through confession, contemplation, and hopeful anticipation.

So, why do we decorate for Christmas so early in our home?

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I think it has something to do with the need to do a little early Christmas shopping. Each year around early to mid November, my brother sends my two sisters and me the names of needy children who are in need of Christmas presents. Our goal is to give these gifts to my brother during the Thanksgiving holiday so he has time to take them to the social agency which will be distributing the gifts. We've been doing this as a family for the past several years and it has become an important part of our yearly yuletide tradition.

Today, we went to the store to buy the gifts and when we got home, we packaged them so that they would be ready to give to my brother. It was nice to come home to a lit Christmas tree, knowing that an anonymous family going through a time of financial hardship was going to receive nice presents for Christmas.

Of course, we could still go out and buy the presents and wait to decorate until at least after Black Friday is over. I just like knowing that the light of Christmas can sometimes come a little early.

Have a blessed Advent and Christmas season.

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I mean, have a Happy Thanksgiving!