Praise and Prayer!

I am still basking in the glow of our Christmas Eve Celebrations! God was present and God was greatly honored by your worship. My email box has been barraged with notes from your family and friends saying they had a God encounter Christmas Eve. Thank you to all of the servants, lay and staff, who sacrificed family time to make sure everything was read to celebrate Jesus Birthday. From the parking lot to the chair and pew God was honored and people were blessed. Thank you to everyone who invited someone, brought a coat and a financial gift to Jesus. Thank you to everyone who showed up to celebrate Jesus birthday.

Below is an accounting of what God did through you on Christmas Eve. Numbers are important only because they represent the fruit of your labor and evidence of God working in the lives of his people.
                                                               3 Worship Celebrations

Attendance 1755

Coats 358

Birthday Gift to Jesus $87,762

 Praise be to God! I have been worshipping and offering prayers of thanksgiving for God’s faithfulness and your obedient generosity for four straight days and counting. You are in incredible people and I am so proud to serve as your Senior Pastor.

Coats will be distributed very soon and our mission team will be heading to Ethiopia the afternoon of January 23rd. We will keep you posted on both and share pictures from both endeavors.

As you get ready for the New Year, I have a special request. I am deep into the preparation for our next message series, "Spiritual Warfare" and I sense God leading Dallas and me to pray for you and your family in a more personal way. Continue to place any prayer requests in the offering plate or contact the prayer line, but please email me, rick.owen@stmattcpc.org, with the same accompanied with more detail about the request.

What keeps you up at night? What occupies your mind? Where do you need to grow spiritually? Where is procrastination and rationalization wrecking havoc with your life? What is your life dream? Who are you concerned about? What burdens your mind and heart?

Prayers of praise are also welcome but I especially want to know where the evil one has built a stronghold and is hindering your quality of life. I will NOT be able to respond to each and every prayer request but I promise that Dallas and I will keep your prayer requests confidential and jointly pray for you as we approach this new series beginning January 8-9.

I covet your prayers also knowing full well that when darkness is exposed attacks are inevitable. I am eager to share what God is teaching me about this long ignored but important subject. I pray God’s revelation will empower and embolden you in your journey to follow Jesus.

 Peace,

   Rick
 "Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Pray also for me that when ever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel...."
                                                                                    Ephesians 6:18-19

Christmas Eyes

Christmas Eve Services

4:00 and 5:30 Contemporary

6:30 Traditional

Christmas in its purest form is about the invisible God becoming visible. It is about blind eyes being opened to see God.

Shelby was blind for 51 years. She couldn’t see a thing. Her world was a black hall of sounds and smells. She felt her way through decades of darkness and then she could see. A skilled surgeon performed a very complicated surgery and for the first time Shelby had sight.

“I never dreamed yellow was so…….yellow. I can see the shape of the moon and I like nothing better to see a jet plane scream across the sky leaving a vapor trail. Most of all I love to stare at sunrises, sunsets and star studded nights . I didn’t know how wonderful it was to see!”

She is right. Those of us who have been given a life time of vision can’t know how wonderful it must be to be given sight, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know what it is like to be blind.

You may have seen a thousand rainbows and not seen the grandeur of one. You might walk by a flower garden every day and never see the splendor of a single rose. A man can live a lifetime with a woman and never pause to see the beauty of her soul.

And a person can be all that goodness calls him to be and never see the Author of Life. Being honest or moral doesn’t mean we will see him. We may see what other see in him. Or we may hear what he said, but until we see him for ourselves, until our own sight is given, we may think we see him but we may only see a hazy form in the gray semi darkness.

Have you seen him? Have you caught a glimpse of His Majesty? Have you seen the bronzed Galilean who spoke with thunderous authority and loved with a child like humility? Have you seen the One who claimed to be older than time and greater than death? Have you seen him?

Those who do have never been the same. In a instant gone is the pomp of religion and the meaningless controversy of opinion and theology. Time stands still, broken hearts are healed, confused minds are made clear and loveless lives are filled with …….irrational love.

Have you seen Jesus? Those who do will never be the same.

Thomas cried “My Lord and my God.”
Mary exclaimed ‘I have seen the Lord.”
 John declared “We have seen his glory.”
The two on the road to Emmaus “Were not our hearts burning while he talked?”
But Peter said it best “We were eyewitnesses to his majesty.”

Has it been a while since you have seen Jesus? Join us on Christmas Eve as we celebrate the miracle of the invisible God becoming visible. Join us as we marvel at the sight of God becoming flesh and blood so that we might see love in all its beauty. Join us and first hand be an eyewitness to his majesty.

And if you really want to see Jesus, bring your family and friends who have been blinded to the beauty of life because of hardship, disappointment and meaningless days. Bring a coat so Jesus can be warm when he is walking the street among the homeless. And don’t forget to bring your birthday gift to Jesus, equal Christmas dollars spent gifting your family and friends, so that the lost and least in Ethiopia might experience Jesus first hand. One of the best ways to see Jesus is through the reflection of blind eyes being opened.

I pray by the time our  Christmas Eve Celebrations are over and everyday of your life you will be able to declare with Peter….”I was an eyewitness to his Majesty.”

Merry Christmas

Rick

Christmas Traditions That I Love

I love Christmas. I love the singing of Christmas Carols, the smell of fresh cookies baking in the oven and the anticipation of gathering with the family to open presents. I love shopping for that one perfect gift for Dallas and collaborating with her on what to buy our 3 sons. I love running through my neighborhood streets lined by houses lit with multicolored lights and the messages of hope, peace, joy and love.


I love seeing the eyes of children sparkle as they look at the tree and then sit in Santa’s lap.  I love seeing my hulking three sons walk through the doors shouting “I’m home” and give their mother a big hug. I love the tradition of assembling with family for a delicious meal and heart warming fellowship. Shoot, I even love wrapping presents,  and placing them beneath the tree.

I love Christmas. I love everything about Christmas!

But most of all, I love seeing people stepping up to serve and love their neighbors. I love seeing the angels disappear from the tree and watching gifts miraculously reappear. I love seeing you answer the call to distribute those gifts to our neighbors in need. I love listening to your sing on Christmas Eve, watching you receive communion and bringing your sacrificial gifts for the least and the lost. I love seeing our  Birthday Gift to Jesus bear fruit among our Ethiopian friends.

I love Christmas and all her traditions!! Even more I love it when the light comes on for someone and they realize how much God loves them and are moved to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

I love you Church, but more importantly God does and the greatest Christmas tradition you can practice is sharing the Good News of God’s love with someone you know. Invite them to come and see the gift God wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed in the manger just for them, the gift of His Son, the gift of His love, the gift of Jesus. And I suspect when you see the light of God’s love sparkle in their eyes, inviting others to “come and see” will become number one on the list of “Christmas traditions that I love”.

Merry Christmas,

Rick

Christmas Eve Worship Celebrations

Friday December 24,

Contemporary 4:00 & 5:30 PM

Traditional 6:30 PM