Covenant Presbyterian Church Augusta

Tonight we celebrate the light of God coming into the world through Jesus Christ.  God incarnate.  A bright light to show the world the face of God in human form.  We celebrate that light with a candlelight service of worship and adoration.

Not long after Charlie was born, I noticed a change in myself. I started singing a lot more than I did pre-Charlie. I'd make up songs about all kinds of things for Charlie.  I wonder if the same was true for Mary when she sang the Magnificat that we'll read in worship on Sunday morning. Perhaps Mary's beautiful and prophetic words about the God who had chosen and blessed her to be Jesus' mother just spilled out of her in that moment. However it happened, we will be blessed to hear (and sing!) her words again in worship on this Sunday morning.

This Sunday will be our annual Lessons & Carols service.  we will tell the story of Advent and Christmas with readings from Old Testament prophets and New Testament gospels. You will also have the opportunity to join the choir in several places, so come ready to sing out!  We hope you enjoy this service of worship in its entirety.

As you may know, we've been focusing this year on The Stories We Tell and why they are important. During Advent, we're calling it The Story We Tell. Like all good stories, this one has a lot of secondary characters that might be less familiar. Who is Jesse? Or Elizabeth? Or Simeon? No one is putting an inflatable Simeon in their yard and Elizabeth will not make the front of any Christmas cards.The nice thing about Advent covering four weeks is that we can learn more about these characters. This Sunday, we will focus on Zechariah, who was the father of John the Baptist.

This Sunday marks the beginning of Advent, which is a season of preparation and waiting for the coming of the Christ child. Waiting can be hard, and it helps to have something to do while we're waiting. This Sunday, we'll dedicate ourselves to the task of readying our worship space for Christmas with our annual Hanging of the Greens service. We include the entire service this week full of music and narration in observance of this first Sunday of Advent.

Maybe it's just because I still feel like we lost a whole month after the hurricane, but it seems to me that people are decorating for Christmas even earlier this year than in previous years. (Have you seen the bevy of inflatables on the front lawn of that house on Wheeler Road?!?) While I understand the impulse to jump to Christmas, perhaps we can pump the brakes just a bit.Before we can celebrate Christmas, even before we can celebrate Thanksgiving, we need to celebrate Christ the King Sunday. That holiday may not be circled on your family calendar on the fridge, but it's an important day for Christians as we reaffirm Christ as the ultimate authority in our lives.

We've all had our challenges lately. When we are in the midst of challenging times, it can be comforting to read the stories in Scripture of those who experienced their own challenges and to hear how God was at work during those difficult moments. Our focus this Sunday will be the story of Hannah, who was not able to conceive a child and who prayed that God would bless her with a son. As is often the case, the immediate story looked like a disaster--but the larger story was amazing. I hope that you'll join us on this podcast to hear more.

There is a line in The Confession of 1967 that says the quality of our relations with other persons is the measure of the church's fidelity. I've thought about that line a lot over the past week, especially as I saw people make overblown statements about others leading up to and immediately following the presidential election. It is hard work to value people with whom you so vehemently disagree. It is much easier to assume the worst and to call them names. If you're reading this, then you don't get to act like the rest of the world. You are a follower of Christ, and it is your job to model a different kind of love to a world that often resists it. The measure of the church's fidelity is the quality of our relations with other persons.I'm grateful that we have a community that aspires to something greater, and people within it who can help us to grow in love and faith together.

Several years ago I came across this line in a book I was reading: "People don't resist change; they resist loss." Oof. I can't speak for you, but that resonates with me. I'm not good with grief, and I don't think our culture is either. We're too fixated on success and happiness and positivity.Our faith, though, does allow for grief and sadness, and we'll get to hear one of the most powerful stories of grief in Scripture in Sunday's worship service. The story of Naomi and Ruth invites us to notice God's presence and provision in the darkest days of our lives and the strength that comes from that experience.

This week we celebrate Reformation Sunday with the Kirkin' O' the Tartans. We will honor the roots of our Presbyterian denomination with traditional Scottish music and a processional of tartans.  And a wonderful message entitled, "A Reforming Fire."