December 12, 2023
ANNOUNCEMENTS.
Crew December 13th & December 20TH for all 3rd-6th graders from 3:30 pm till 5:00 pm.
Men’s Band Christmas Concert. Sunday, December 17th, 6 pm at Trinity.
Spaghetti Meal, Sunday, December 17th, 5 pm.
Sunday School Christmas program, Sunday, December 17th, 9 am.
Christmas Eve Worship Services, Sunday, December 24th, 9 am, 2 pm, 4:30 pm, & 9:00 pm. Please note that the 9 am service will not have a Candlelight portion. All services have Holy Communion.
Please consider bringing your Deer Hides to Trinity! They can be placed in the shack in front of the church. Please hides only, no heads or feet.
Sign up to bring snacks for Crew and/or Sunday School. Any and all are very much appreciated. Sign ups are on the table in the Narthex.
MUSINGS FROM PASTOR BRAD
The other night, Amy and I watched “A Muppet Christmas Carol,” which is my favorite of the adaptations of the Charles Dickens book. (They are, in order, “A Muppet Christmas Carol,” “Scrooged,” “Mickey’s Christmas Carol,” and the George C. Scott one). Anyways, I assume you all know the tale and the thing that always strikes me when I watch any of the adaptations is that it is, to me, about Ebenezer Scrooge becoming generous. Generous to his employees, his family, and the poor. To be generous with what he has for the sake of others and the generosity of spirit, of having care and compassion for your fellow humans.
When I think of this past week at Trinity, that word generosity really comes to mind. Generosity of spirit, generosity of time, generosity of resources, all the support and lift up the mission of the church. We had so many volunteers on Wednesday during lefse making that I left to go replace my failing phone! There was so many moments of laughter, of connection, of a generosity of spirit as we toiled over the lefse. So many people gave the generosity of their time to make it all happen, and then of course all of you who made items for the bake sale and brought them. Though it is a lot of work, one of the reasons I love lefse week is that generosity of spirit, of time, of being together in a shared purpose and mission.
Of course, there was also the generosity of resources throughout the whole weekend. The Youth had a record-breaking Silent Auction and Soup Lunch, raising over $9,000 total between the two and cash donations given in advance. To be honest, we were pretty worried and many of our kids were concerned about the auction. They got turned away a lot more at businesses this year and many of those businesses weren’t the nicest about it. There was frustration. But we were so thankful for the donations we did get, for the generosity of church members who brought items in, and of course the incredible response from the community. Your generosity means that we can be confident that we have the resources to send our kids to New Orleans for the incredible faith experience of a National Youth Gathering.
Christmas is about joy, about hope, about giving thanks that our God loves us so much to become flesh in the form of Jesus Christ and save us from our sins. And it is about generosity, of being generous in spirit, hope, love, and resources for the sake of the other. Of responding to the amazing miracle of the birth of Christ and our salvation that comes with it. And so I give thanks for your generosity, for the ways in which you show the love of God in the ways you are generous in the world. May you see this day and every day the generosity of your loving God and may you be filled with Christmas spirit, joy, hope, and faith. God bless us everyone!