This little trio, Ordinary Time, does some of the most extraordinary work in the simplest way. This is a favorite song about the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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If you don't have a church where you normally worship, consider joining us on Christmas Eve for a simple service of readings and carols. We'll start at 7:00 pm. There will be singing carols and hearing special music. There will be readings of the Christmas story from scripture. There will be a brief message from the Pastor, and a candle ceremony as we remember how the Light of Christ comes into our lives. Come as you are. We'll love to see you.   Remember to save the following dates on your calendar.
✟ December 24, 2014 - Christmas Eve Carols & Candles Service at 7pm. ✟ January 6, 2015 - Epiphany Pot Luck Dinner at UBC @5:30pm. ✟ January 19 - Annual Meeting! Meeting begins at 7pm. Come at 6:30pm for refreshments. ✟ Camp Sentinel is planning a mission trip to Haiti in January 2016. If you would be interested in joining the team, click here: Sentinel Mission Trip or visit "Sentinel Haiti Outreach" on Facebook. Missions Giving: Are you aware that missions giving is not part of our general budget? If you wish to support missions through United Baptist Church, please designate your offering for MISSIONS GIVING by placing your offering in an envelope and writing MISSIONS GIVING on the envelope. Missionaries we support: UBC directly sends funds to support 4 specific missionary endeavors. Here are links so that you can learn more about the missionaries that UBC supports: Ann and Bill Clemmer Mercy Gonzalez-Barnes Russian Missions Camp Sentinel Giving to Missions through ABCVNH United Baptist Church is part of the American Baptist Churches of VT and NH. In recent years, the focus of our regional administration is on gospel renewal and revitalization of churches in the region. Money we contribute to the region goes directly to support and encourage gospel work in churches serving communities that desperately need the good news of Jesus Christ. In 2013, ABCVNH returned over $154,000 to churches throughout the region. The money was used to plant new churches, re-open closed churches, provide interim pastoral assistance, and continued pastoral support to pastors and their families. But none of that is possible without financial help. Consider designating a portion of your missions giving to ABCVNH.  Every year as a tradition, a letter is sent out by the pastor at Advent time to everyone who wants to be on the mailing list. This is the text of this year's Advent letter.
I am a sucker for the sweeping epic tale of the hero on a world-saving quest: That’s actually the part about Christmas I love the most. The Christmas story is one chapter of the most epic adventure ever written. We need this story. Amid all the hubbub and general cacophony that surrounds Christmas, we love to retreat to the picture of the sweet baby in the hay, softly lit, with gentle music playing in the background. And yet, Christmas is just one part of the much bigger story of how the Saving God of all history rides to the rescue of a dying world. He comes to the rescue, but he does not arrive at the head of a great army mounted in the full panoply of war. Instead, he arrives alone, through pain and blood and mess, just like any other baby. Later in the story we see that his rescue plan has nothing to do with military conquest. Instead he suffers his own pain and gives his own blood, and then rises again from his own death. What a strange way to go about a rescue! It’s a story that turns our expectations upside down, humbling the proud and raising up the lowly. It’s a story full of surprise and wonder and amazement -- and the part with the baby is just a piece of it. But that piece is crucial. It teaches us who Jesus is. As the Apostle John wrote: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…” Jesus, that little baby, is the God who comes to dwell with us. That is why what Jesus did matters so much. He didn’t merely come to set a good example or to speak wise words. Because he is God in the flesh, his birth, death and resurrection change the basic foundations of reality so that we have real hope. He rescues us when we could not rescue ourselves. So when the noise starts to overwhelm you, remember the rest of the story. And the best part is that God invites us to participate in this story – to become part of God’s saving work in Christ. When through faith we trust in who Jesus is and in what he has done, we enter into God’s epic story and actually become part of it. That is the promise of Christmas and the Incarnation. So, may the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ bless you and everyone with you this season as you play your small part in God’s epic tale. Grace and Peace to you all Hi Everyone,
This week Pastor Denis will be presenting the message. The scripture readings this week Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; Luke 1:39-55. UBC has a new website! Please check it out at www.unitedbaptistchurchconcordnh.com and share it with your friends!! ✟ December 14, 2014 - Join us at 4pm for a Christmas Carol Sing! Enjoy the fun tradition of singing carols! ✟ December 24, 2014 - Christmas Eve Carols & Candles Service at 7pm. ✟ January 6, 2015 - Epiphany Pot Luck Dinner at UBC @5:30pm. ✟ Camp Sentinel is planning a mission trip to Haiti in January 2016. If you would be interested in joining the team, click here: Sentinel Mission Trip or visit "Sentinel Haiti Outreach" on Facebook. Missions Giving: Are you aware that missions giving is not part of our general budget? If you wish to support missions through United Baptist Church, please designate your offering for MISSIONS GIVING by placing your offering in an envelope and writing MISSIONS GIVING on the envelope. Missionaries we support: UBC directly sends funds to support 4 specific missionary endeavors. Here are links so that you can learn more about the missionaries that UBC supports: Ann and Bill Clemmer Mercy Gonzalez-Barnes Russian Missions Camp Sentinel Giving to Missions through ABCVNH United Baptist Church is part of the American Baptist Churches of VT and NH. In recent years, the focus of our regional administration is on gospel renewal and revitalization of churches in the region. Money we contribute to the region goes directly to support and encourage gospel work in churches serving communities that desperately need the good news of Jesus Christ. In 2013, ABCVNH returned over $154,000 to churches throughout the region. The money was used to plant new churches, re-open closed churches, provide interim pastoral assistance, and continued pastoral support to pastors and their families. But none of that is possible without financial help. Consider designating a portion of your missions giving to ABCVNH. Blessings, Becca By Pastor Dave Denis / Reprinted from the blog Necat Draco  There’s a party coming and it’s time to get ready.
At its best, getting ready for the party is almost as good as the party itself. Clean the house. Set the table. Cook the food – fancy food, hearty food, plain or spicy. Just make sure there’s lots of it and it’s good. Oh, and remember to pull the best bottles from your cabinets and cellars, with lots of glasses and plenty of ice. Take a bath, polish yourself up, and put on your goin’-to-the-party clothes. Smile and be happy and open the door. The house will fill with chatter and laughter. The convivial spirit will rise as bellies fill and wine glasses empty. For a moment the ugliness of the world is held off outside the walls and inside you taste just a bit of heaven. It was finally worth all the work and worry of getting ready, because once the party is on, nothing else matters. That’s how it’s supposed to work. But…that’s not always the case, is it? Have you ever prepared for a party and found that the preparation was not fun at all? Have you ever been overtaken by “guest anxiety?” You work for hours, perhaps days, in a red mist of hospitality rage, trying to whip things into shape, and woe to the poor fool who gets in your way or fails to pitch in to help. It's a soul sucking madness that takes over the whole house and turns the rest of the family into zombie slaves in the thrall of the rabid hostess, made mad by her party planning psychosis. Sound familiar? This is what happens when the host begins to think that the point of the party is to prove what a great host she is. Instead of offering the party as an act of joyful love for the sake of your friends, the party becomes (in the mind of the host) the impending day of judgment -- and the judges are your guests. This is such an easy mistake to make because we love to make everything into a religion where we think that doing things just right will save us. We tell ourselves that its all for the guests, when in fact the guests are just an excuse to congratulate ourselves on what good hosts we are. We turn the party into a religion and in the process miss the whole point of the exercise. Now in the second week of Advent we prepare for the party we call Christmas. It's a pretty big deal, in case you haven't noticed. In this layer of the advent season we remember when Jesus was coming and look forward to when he will come again. His coming changes everything. So we prepare. Here is the question: What are we preparing for? The judgment? Or the Party? Be careful how you answer. It’s a trick question really, because if you are preparing for judgment, if you think you are preparing to be good enough for the party, you can just forget it. It is simply impossible for us to perfectly clean the cobwebs out of every corner of our spiritual house. We can scrub and polish and sweep and wipe, but we can never banish the stains and dust of our fallen lives. We can never really make it good enough for Jesus. The dirt is just too embedded. The walls too rotten. The carpet too shabby. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no party, and it certainly doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t invite him in. On the contrary – that's exactly why we MUST invite him in. You see, this is the Good News. Jesus is the guest who, when he arrives, cleans the house for us – top to bottom. Jesus cleans our kitchen, shines our bathroom, scrubs the toilets, washes the floors and deep cleans the carpets. Jesus arranges the furniture, plumps the pillows, puts away all the scattered clothes, polishes the silver and straightens the pictures on the walls. When Jesus arrives he takes your house, and completely remakes it into the best house it could possibly be and then some – spotless, perfect and completely comfortable. Jesus is the original and better Extreme Makoever Home Edition. Not only that, Jesus provides all the food. More than you could possibly eat, more kinds than you can possibly imagine and better than you ever thought it could be. Whatever food you might have to offer, even if it’s just meager loaves and dried fishes, he will take what you offer and make it into the most sumptuous meal you never imagined. With Jesus there is no dieting, no diabetes and certainly no anorexia. With Jesus if its feast time then it is time to feast! And when Jesus is in the house, you can bet no wine bottles will ever go empty. This is Gospel: Jesus brings his own party wherever he goes and nobody – but NOBODY -- throws a better one. This too is Gospel: Jesus is both the best guest and the most host, all at the same time. And this also is Gospel: he has invited you to your own party. So get ready wontcha?. Jesus has both come and is yet coming. We are both waiting (preparing) and enjoying his presence now. So prepare out of joyful overflowing love and in prescient thanksgiving. Forget fear and judgment – he has fulfilled the judgement for us so that we need not fear it any more. Know that when our own preparations fall short (and they always do), Jesus makes up the difference, completely, joyfully, perfectly. Make sure you understand what I am saying. Get ready. Clean yourself up. Make your place beautiful. Do all the things you would do to prepare for the most wonderful guests - but do it all out of love and thanksgiving for the host, and the party He brings. That is Gospel. So for Christ’s sake (really, I mean it literally) stop worrying and get ready to party. Jesus is on his way.
 If we have a hope, then we wait for it.
If we wait, we must be hoping for something. The two are intertwined. There is a saying (it's even a book title) in the personal development / self-help / business advice arena. "Hope is not a strategy." Indeed. It's true, but not in the way that most motivational speakers mean it. Hope is where you go when all your strategies fail. We all depend on various strategies to carve meaning and significance out of the raw stuff of our lives. When those strategies fail (and they always fail, eventually) we are left with either despair, or hope. Despair is too harsh, too final. So most of us continue to choose hope in the only way we know how. We devise more strategies that will fail in their turn. The definition of insanity. Advent is a time for confessing the failure of our strategies and beholding our hope in his pure and perfect simplicity. It is a ticket off the merry go round of strategy. For our Hope is not a strategy, nor a philosophy, nor a cause, nor an idea. He is a person. His name is Jesus. And in Advent we remember what it is to wait on Him. We remember to wait. and hope. For he has already come, is coming now and is still yet to come. In his coming he does everything that needs doing to bring our hope to completion. Wait. Hope. He comes. |
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