Jim McDonald's blog

What a glorious sight it was to see so many at church on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas morning to celebrate together the birth of Jesus Christ.

As we finish up this week of celebration and vacation, we turn our sights to the Epiphany, which marks a visit to the baby Jesus by The Magi also known as the Three Kings or Three Wise Men. In my sermon this Sunday, I will use words from three different scriptures to highlight three kinds of Kings we find in the Bible.

I hope you will join us on Sunday morning to ring in the Epiphany and the New Year.

This week has brought us a burst of winter with freezing temperatures and snow, snow, snow. Next week may bring us more of the same, but it also brings us Christmas, the celebration of the birth of our savior, Jesus Christ. In worship this Sunday, I will focus on the Christmas story from Luke 2:1-7. I will tie it into the ways we find God's glory active in today's world. So while Sunday promises to be a chilly day, we hope that the fellowship of worship and our warm welcoming sanctuary filled with beloved Christmas carols will entice you to come hear a new twist on an old story.

In these weeks before Christmas, we find ourselves hauling out our ornaments and decorations, which spend so much of the year stuffed away in boxes, now ready to transform our homes for the holiday season. We  find city streets filled with holiday lights, wreaths and Christmas trees turning ordinary streetscapes into festive boulevards. Everyone puts out their finest spread because, after all, the Christmas story is extraordinary and we want to be prepared to receive it.

Our week has been filled with expressing our gratitude; for our family, our friends, our faith. As we all are recovering from what was hopefully a blessed Thanksgiving Day, we begin to turn our thoughts to the season of Advent, which begins this Sunday. Advent is the season not only of preparing for Jesus' birth, but for the time when Christ will come again.

"On that day let us gather in sanctuaries dedicated to worship and in homes blessed by family affection to express our gratitude for the glorious gifts of God; and let us earnestly and humbly pray that He will continue to guide and sustain us in the great unfinished tasks of achieving peace, justice, and understanding among all men and nations and of ending misery and suffering wherever they exist."

President John F. Kennedy, Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, November 5, 1963

One of the many joys we had this week was the pleasure of watching our preschool students parade through the office dressed in their finest Halloween costumes. It is always a "treat" to see the excitement in their eyes.

This past Sunday, I had the pleasure to walk alongside 90 of fellow DGFUMCers in the annual South DuPage CROP Hunger Walk. We were there to support hunger-fighting efforts around the world and in our own backyard and also, let's face it, to see John Smoke wear a Chicago Bears jersey. Worth every step!

The CROP Walk is just one of the many ministries that our church supports in ways both big and small. These ministries could not be done without the giving of your time and gifts.

"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."  (Luke 12:34)

What a wonderful week of music and hospitality it has been here at DGFUMC! On Sunday, I had the pleasure of attending the Bridge Board's Encore! Concert. I continue to be awed by the talented musicians that are part of our church family. This benefit concert helps to support our Bridge families as they transition from homelessness to independence. This week also marked the first Tuesday of the season that we staffed our PADS site. Thank you to all the volunteers who help support these important ministries.

This past week saw the start of our All Church Fall Book Study Fear Of The Other: No Fear In Love by William H. Willimon, which follows our fall theme Simple, but Not Easy - Loving God and Neighbor. In the book, Willimon invites readers to consider the gospel command to love (and not merely tolerate) those considered to be "Other" or outside mainstream Christian culture. The first chapter, Saved by the Other, reminds us that we were saved by the ultimate "Other," Jesus Christ, and, as Christians, how this should shape our perception and reception of "Others."

This week begins the start of many of our fall programs as committees and work areas begin to meet again in fellowship and mission.