Snow Ball Fight

What fun to watch our fellow singers and orchestra members playing in the snow! Look out for our 2 head conductors! They were vicious, but all in good fun! Hope there's still a spot for me in choir after this little video!

Snowball Fight!

The Christmas Dream

Greetings from the land of Longhorns, longnecks and all things Large (Texas for those of you who've never been). I am firmly immersed in Christmas with my entire family and relishing the moments. However, I did want to share some musings from Christmases past. Especially in light of Pastor Jamie's great message today which revealed that the first Christmas really wasn't anything like an 8 x 10 glossy. In any case, hope it speaks to your heart. Merry Christmas!

Read Matthew 1:20-25

He awoke with a start. Laying quietly on his sleeping mat, his heart was racing as he tried to sort through the strange impressions that had awakened him. He had been dreaming, or so he thought. The struggles and stresses of the last few weeks had finally taken their toll, leaving him exhausted. He remembered collapsing on the bed with the decision in his mind to quietly divorce his wife. It seems the only compassionate thing to do since she was carrying a dream he couldn’t understand. And as his eyes closed, he remember, his heart had never seemed further from his God.

Yet now … the dream . . . the angel . . . the words of God explaining her vision – God’s vision. His heart continued to surge on, but not with the anguished confusion of misunderstanding. Now he was pulsating with a life and love he had never experienced before. He jumped up from the mat and began pacing the small room, slapping the back of his right hand into the palm of his left. With each rhythmic slap, the dream began to crystallize in his mind and a passion began to invade his heart. This dream was not merely an illusion of the night but rather the revelation of God since the beginning of time, come to pass. And God had asked him to share the dream, to actually participate in its fulfillment.

God was actually sharing His dreams with him and his wife. Even more, the thought gripped him, God was going to live with them, care for them, love them in a way no one else had ever experienced. He would be with them. His knees nearly buckled as he headed for the door. God must really love the world more than they could fathom to create and complete such a plan as this. It really was beyond comprehension.

He ripped open the door as the dawn began to break over the rugged horizon. He stopped for a moment and took in the sleeping village as though for the first time. It looked different now. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath of the crisp air and breathed out a prayer of thanks; for he now saw the world with the passion of his God’s vision. Quietly shutting the door, he raced down the path to find his wife and tell her the Love Incarnate had come down and God was with them.

Food for Thought:

1. According to the following verses, what are God’s dreams (or plans) for us and how do we share in them? John 3:16, John 10:28, 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, Galatians 2:20, Philippians 3:10-14

2. What is the dream that you perceive God would have you share with Him this Christmas season and how will you work with Him to see that dream fulfilled? How does the sharing of this dream with Him draw you closer to Him?

Copyright © 2000 by Kimberly K. Hannay
All rights reserved.

Some Holiday Cheer!

Click on the photo and turn up the sound... Thanks Dick!

Christmas Festival on Main Street

This was our first ever attempt at a Christmas Festival for our whole church. We were well-pleased with the attendance and it was a good time for our church body to spend some time together at the busy holiday season. Here's the Bethlehem petting zoo.
The Salvation Army provided Christmas music on the mall and it was very good! They really know how to play! It lended a festive atmosphere to the afternoon.
The main attraction was the snow hill put on by children's ministry. A semi-trailer backed onto the sidewalk and a snow-making machine was filled with bags of ice cubes for about an hour. The machine spit out this pile of snow which covered a mountain of hay bales. I believe some of the snow is still out there today 5 days after the festival. Imagine that--the facilities staff had to shovel snow in the courtyard!

JOY! Photo Gallery

This cello section is rocking!

Janice Cook spent about 43 hours preparing these canvases (hand made by Joel Maupin) for the musical plus she painted during the musical. Unfortunately, the choir and orchestra were busy and unable to see this happening. It was really quite moving with the painting magnified on the large screens on top of the actual screens. It looked like floor to ceiling artwork. Way to to Janice and Joel! I also understand that Janice's daughter, Jennifer, with baby in a backpack came to help paint as well as Kelly Crum and Sarah Stewart.
This is our best reincarnation of John Tesh Live at the Red Rocks!
Check out the symmetry in the horn section!
How about those tubas?
Joe is really intense at this point of the musical.

Buddy Campbell's Sister Passed Away

Buddy (wife is Sheree) Campbell's 48-year-old sister passed away suddenly last week. The memorial service was this past Monday at Bethany Bible Church. We need to remember this family in our prayers.

Kitchen on the Street

Cheryl Woodring is involved with an organization that is similar to Neighborhood Ministries. She would like to share some of the information with us to provide an opportunity to serve.

Kitchen on the Street helps those who cannot help themselves. By providing food to children and families in crisis, we offer a hand up... not a hand out. And in the process, we share help and hope with those struggling to rise above poverty and despair.

The need has never been more urgent...

In 2005, 12.9 million children under the age of 18 were in poverty.
In fiscal year 2005, 50% of children were food stamp recipients.
According to the USDA, an estimated 12.4 million children lived in food insecure households in 2005.
During the 2005 federal fiscal year, 17.5 million low-income children received free or reduced-price meals through the National School Lunch Program. Unfortunately, just under 2 million of these same income-eligible children participated in the Summer Food Service Program that same year.

Research indicates that even mild undernutrition experienced by young children during critical periods of growth impacts the behavior of children, their school performance, and their overall cognitive development.

Kitchen on the Street is turning hunger into hope... one child at a time!

Through partnerships with Phoenix schools, we are providing at-risk children BAGS OF HOPE containing nutritious food and a message of love and encouragement.

You can click here to visit their website for more information:

http://www.kitchenonthestreet.org/home.html

JOY!

Here's one of the musical photos taken by Matt Rich on Thursday night. I'm going to try to have prints available this Wednesday night.

Need Babysitters on Christmas Eve!

Does anyone have a couple of hours they could give to babysit the Bubar and Larson kids on Christmas Eve? The parents are all involved in the services and childcare is needed for 6 kids. Ideally, it would be nice for someone to go to their homes and care for the children since the programs are late. Let us know if you have any ideas.

Maybe For Next Year...

The Gift of Giving

Well, I warned you that I could feel a blogging itch coming on. So here you go. Just my thoughts for the season (this week). Merry Christmas!
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I love giving gifts. In fact, I love giving gifts far more than I love receiving them. My preference has always been to pick out a gift which uniquely speaks to the recipient; something useful, meaningful which in the future brings our special relationship to mind, hopefully with a smile. Consequently, I’m not a big fan of the gift card/cash gift thing. It’s hard for me to imagine the recipient feeling a special connection with the giver from a self-selected gift. But again, that’s just me.

In my gift-giving career, I’ve probably encountered just about every possible experience. There have been the gifts which were a huge hit and some which, while useful, may not have been as “fun” as others. There were those gifts I have given which I thought were really great gifts and they wound up either exchanged or in the back of a cabinet, never to see the light of day again. And some of those gifts were even regifted back to me with the passing of time.

It’s those gifts which I so carefully chose for the recipient, the ones that I thought were so perfect, useful, meaningful, and never got used or appreciated, those are the gifts which brought such a sense of disappointment. And nothing brought greater joy than to see the perfect gift not only accepted, but embraced, used and truly appreciated by the receiver.

I have to believe that God’s gift-giving experience is pretty on point to our own human experience. Consider how much He loves to give gifts to us. Of course, there was the gift of His Son and His monumental sacrifice on our behalf in order for us to attain the gift of salvation. Then there are the spiritual gifts, the gifts of skills and talents, the myriad of blessings which blanket our days. The list goes on. Big or small, the gifts we receive from God are all carefully chosen by Him as the perfect present, unique for the receiver, personal, useful, meaningful and above all, chosen to bring the Giver to mind with its use.

How do we receive God’s gifts? Do we give them a cursory acknowledgment; use them to our benefit with no thought of the effort taken by the Giver? Do we try to exchange our gift because, while we appreciate the thought, it’s just not exactly what we think we want? Do we accept His gifts and then push them far back in the cabinet of our lives to collect dust and perhaps deteriorate from lack of use? Or worst of all, do we ever try to “regift” something to God, forgetting who gave it to us in the first place, trying to pawn it off as an offering of our own making? I can’t even imagine how saddened our Giver must be in such cases given the perfection of thought which went into the selection of the gift by the One who only gives good things to His children. And how disappointing it must be when He chose the gift specifically as a reminder of our relationship together.

So what do I want for Christmas? I want to be a gracious recipient of my Lord’s gifts, receiving them, acknowledging the thoughtfulness of His perfect choice, using them, cherishing them as He intended, in such a way that His gift-giving experience with me brings great joy to His heart. What do you want for Christmas?

We're Down to the Wire

Well, we're getting down to crunch time with the CMDs (Christmas Musical Details). So it's time to lay this one on the alter, blanketed in the incense of prayer. The following is a suggested list of areas we can lift up to the Lord. Be specific in your requests and be ready to share with others how God responded to your specifics. Answered prayer is what will carry the musical far beyond the four walls of the sanctuary.

Production details
· that every detail from largest to the smallest would be timely completed
· that everything in the facility would work properly at each rehearsal and each performance
· that everyone God calls to the ministry of creating an honoring performance will respond to the call, regardless of the task
· that each and every support person, technician and performer will keep the Guest of Honor in the forefront of our minds and prepare for the performance accordingly

Guests
· that every person God would have attend the performances will respond to His call.
· that every single roadblock the enemy would try to keep someone from coming would be divinely thwarted
· that God would have hearts completely prepared, open and soft, to personally experience the Story of a lifetime.

Enemy banishment
· that God, if He wills, He would see fit to banish Satan from the campus during the week of the performances
· And that, if God allows the enemy’s presence during this time, He would empower us to immediately spot the presence and employ the weapons of praise and thanksgiving.

AM Worship Teams' Christmas Dinner

Thank you Tammy for dinner and a little down time.
It was refreshing to just hang out and enjoy each other.

Does Gary Doan know his wife Leslie can handle a power tool?

How could Bob K possibly get through life WITHOUT ever having played charades??

And how did a pretty Japanese girl (Sachi) learn to make Italy's Tiramisu? Yummmm.

And just because Tammy is amazing on the keyboards, does that necessarily mean she can speak with her hands? What do you think?

And you should see Kristina's version of 'Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree'. Too bad I was too slow with the camera!

Check out Our Own Men's Quintet

I'm sure you've heard of a brass quintet before, but have you heard of a men's quintet? Well, to be sure, this isn't your garden variety men's group--it's a quartet plus one! They provided music at the wedding of Matt Brown (Steve/Linda's son) and Tina Riggs this past Saturday at the Arboretum (in a bit of a rain storm I hear). Pictured are Matt Yokoyama, Jack Hart, Pete Megyesi, David Stauffer and BJ Peters. Can you identify the accompanist? Well actually....she's an alto section leader but I won't name the name.