Are people coming to your home for the holiday? As usual, you need your house to look like, you know, NOT your house as usual? Is your refrigerator stuffed with food items? And how’s the gift wrapping going? Oh, right, do you have last minute shopping to do? While Christmas falls on the same date every year, there always seems to be unexpected disturbances to our Christmas Force testing our best efforts to make the holiday memorable for our family and friends. Whew!
But this is a holy season that is driven by a holy purpose and a divine timeline. It’s “God’s time” — the end of Advent, the moment just before the miracle of Emmanuel’s birth into the world is upon us. Ready or not, here God comes. Into our best and worst of Christmas planning experiences, Sunday’s Gospel reading from Matthew 1:18-25 is all about God moving into our story through the mundane and chaos of our lives. Pastor Kevin continues his camera metaphor as we pick up the telephoto lens in a message titled, “Zooming Towards the Future,” all about Joseph who takes center stage this fourth Sunday of Advent. God’s ways of redemption and reconciliation, relationship and righteousness do not align with our own, no matter how faithful and stalwart and well-intended we may be. God uses whomever God wants to further divine plans and often in ways none of us would readily choose. All this in this story and we have not even made it to the angel’s appearance!
When have you experienced divine guidance? What form did it take? What was it? What kind of guidance do you seek today? This week, we consider Joseph who took a risk and embraced God’s dream for an incredible future. Get ready to zoom into God’s story with you!
The kids share a Christmas poem, JOY- Jesus, Others, and You. Pastor Kevin invites the kids to the manger where new characters are added to the scene as we think of ways to show kindness and love this Christmas.
Hearing, Tasting, Touching, Smelling. Seeing. Where do you experience the signs of Christmas? This week, Pastor Kevin continues his series using a camera lens metaphor in a message titled: 
Do you know how to take a selfie? Sure! Let’s take a few now. Here’s my iPhone, go ahead and take a selfie. Each of you can have a turn. Wow, great shots! Here at the manger scene, imagine its Christmas Eve when we put Jesus as a baby in the manger. If Joseph, Mary and Jesus were born today, do you think a few selfies would be taken?! Absolutely. Can you imagine Joseph holding his phone and taking a selfie with Jesus and Mary in the frame? This week and next, we have a great project for you to work on and you’ll use your photo in a frame like this. And when you take photos of yourself, remember that Jesus is right there in the frame with you, walking with you, always with you, and you can’t see him in the usual way, but he is there just as if it was your friend! This Christmas, and every day, Jesus is in your frame. Now, that’s good news!