I think I am going to be seeing pancakes in my sleep for a couple of days. Why? Yesterday my wife and I provided and cooked breakfast for our church as our Christmas gift to the congregation. I made, cooked, and flipped pancakes for over an hour and a half as my main contribution. We had egg casseroles, ham, and muffins as well. It was worth it, because they are worth it. As for my musings …

-The breakfast time was a lot of fun. It was tiring, but it was well worth it. My wife does awesome at these type of things (and many other things for that matter) and she worked much harder than I did. She had the tables decorated well and had planned the menu with great thought. It was fun to do this for our awesome congregation.

-I had the privilege to do a child dedication yesterday during our worship service. I love doing those.

-I am loving our new sound system. We are still learning how to run it, but I absolutely love the quality of the sound and that we have working monitors and much more.

-Yesterday was part 3 of my Christmas series of messages, entitled “Secret Wishes of Christmas”. The wish this week was “I wish I could have peace and feel whole in spite of my circumstances”. We looked at Mary and the hurt that she likely felt of “I feel completely overwhelmed by my circumstances”. I think we can all relate to feeling overwhelmed, especially around the Christmas season. We looked at healing for this hurt for Mary and for us today.

-After the energy of our Children’s Christmas program last Sunday things felt much different yesterday. It was still a good service, with a good spirit, but it was not as dynamic as last week. I just can’t compete with the kids. I noticed also that last Sunday many people arrived early and took the seats near the front. That didn’t happen yesterday. I am slightly offended. Just kidding.

-We did have people sitting in the front row in 3 of our 4 sections because of the good attendance. This happened even with us adding an extra row of seats a couple of weeks ago. God really is up to good things around here.

-I struggled with feeling distracted while I was preaching yesterday. I hate when I allow that to happen.

-We had a family that came back yesterday after attending last week for the first time.

-As so often happens after a large children’s program the children’s attendance is down significantly the week after. Our worship attendance was still nearly 50 more than this same Sunday a year ago.

-The prayer requests we have been receiving are really taking a turn for the better. They are becoming deeper and more significant. They are expanding beyond just illnesses, and now include relationships, decisions for the future, and burdens for unsaved family and friends. I am very encouraged by this and by the number of people that are joining the ranks of those praying faithfully.

-My life is about to take an interesting turn.  I announced yesterday that I accepted an appointment from our District to begin pastoring a second church. It is another church in our town. I will be preaching at the other church and then coming to the church I am currently pastoring to preach. Being in the same town will make it much easier as far as travel and I already know many of the people. But it may cause some confusion at first for myself and others. I am excited about the opportunity to minister to more people and I have a passion to see local churches make an impact in their community. But it will be different. I have always loved challenges and as I told my Dad, our life is not going to be boring.

-I will be on duty as the Chaplain for our local hospital on Christmas Day. We are getting with our kids and grandkids who are in the states the week after Christmas so this doesn’t really change any of our plans.

Here’s hoping you are not overwhelmed this week. Here’s hoping that you see the real reason for the season and take some time to celebrate the birth of our Savior this week. Here’s hoping that you realize you matter.

Dennis