December 11, 2023

SSB App - If you have not visited our SSB App in some time, you might download and keep it handy.  One feature we are starting to utilize more is the push notifications.  If you have the app and have notifications turned on, you received one last night an hour before the Kid's program.  Although we plan on using this sparingly, notifications will be a helpful reminder that some will find beneficial.  Parents, there is also a LIGHThouse hub on the app that gives you access to the calendar, the weekly newsletter, and upcoming youth events. Download the app HERE.

Summit Registration - Summit Ministries annual student conference is an event we support and highly encourage our high schoolers to attend; we recommend the summer after their junior or senior year.  It is a 12-day conference designed to equip students ages 16-22 to defend, own, and live out a Biblical Worldview.   Normally, our kids go to the Manitou Springs, CO location.  This conference always fills up quickly and SSB values it so much that we offer to pay half of the tuition for our youth.  Visit Summit's WEBSITE to learn more.

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"O come, all ye faithful..."   - the famous Christmastime hymn that was written about 280 years ago.  Our children ended with that song at the Christmas program last night.  

How important for the "faithful" to come.   As I asked last night, "Are you full of faith?"  Are we in the narrative as one of the faithful that should answer the call to "Come!"?  

And what are the faithful to do, according to this song we sing?  "Let us adore Him, Christ, the Lord!"   Adoration has been watered down in our popular use today.  A husband might "adore" his wife.  All parents adore their young children.  Young children will adore a favored blanket or stuffed toy.  People even adore their pets today.  "Adore" as in "to be very fond of."  

Prior to last century and when the hymn was originally written, the word "adore" was used to mean "honor very highly" as in "worship" and it was used most commonly in paying "divine honors to" or "bowing down before."    

Faithful followers of Christ should adore Him in the sense that song was written...  let us not mistake adoration for anything but humble, praise and worship to the King born, begotten not created, and "Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing."  O Come, let us adore Him.  

Psalm 9:1-2:  I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;  I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.  I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.  If you were asked to describe exactly what you did on this day two months ago most of you would be puzzled to remember anything.  You might even check your calendar to see what the day was and what events might have been listed.  Even then, knowing you were likely active with responsibilities, you could not describe what you accomplished.  But, if I asked you to describe a time that you heard a message that moved you so deeply you continued contemplating it for days or months after, you would immediately have a story… often from months or years prior.   This illustration should impress us not only with the impact of God’s Word but the importance of reflecting on “God moments” in our life.   When did God so move you in Word or deed that you were deeply impacted?  Have others heard these stories?  Recount them, praise God for them, and tell others about them.  Be the church!