Home for the holidays. This familiar phrase begins to make its regular appearance around this time of year. Images come to mind of families driving through the snow to grandma’s house, college kids returning to mom and dad’s, and that one strange uncle making his semi-annual appearance with extended family.
On the one hand, this phrase is not particularly significant, as it’s mostly associated with sentimentality that rarely has anything to do with the true meaning of Christmas—you know, the birth of Jesus and the salvation of mankind. But on the other hand, holidays and other significant dates on the calendar serve to remind us of a very important truth that we each know deep down: we were made for relationship. Because God is exists eternally in three persons, he is relational in the core of his being. And because humans are created in the image and likeness of God, we were made to be in relationship. The idea of “Christmas togetherness” can serve to remind us as Christians that we are designed by God to be in relationship with the family of God.
Not only do we believe that this is true for individuals, we believe that this truth extends to churches as well. Simply put, local churches need other local churches for relationship, partnership, and camaraderie. It is this at led idea that led to our new sermon series for December, “Advent With Friends.”
Here’s what this will look like. Four preachers from four churches in the Puget Sound region are taking the four traditional Advent themes and then sharing those messages at each of the four churches involved. Each preacher will share at a different church for each Sunday of Advent, with Christmas Eve Sunday spent at their home church. This means that the topics will be a little out of order from the traditional arrangement, but hey…what would the holidays be without a little chaos?
We are excited to partner together with these churches for the Advent season. Our prayer is that Jesus would get much glory in our partnering together for his gospel!
Advent With Friends schedule for Sound City:
- December 3: Bubba Jennings (from Resurrection Church in Tacoma) will preach on “hope” from 1 Peter 1:3-5.
- December 10: Matthias Haeusel (from Cross & Crown Church in Seattle) will preach on “peace” from 1 Peter 3:10-12.
- December 17: Seth Winterhalter (from Harbor Church in Olympia) will preach on “love” from 1 Peter 1:22-23.
- December 24: Pastor Aaron will preach on "joy" from 1 Peter 1:6-9. We will have special Christmas Eve service times of 8:00a, 9:45a, and 11;30a.
